


Don't Turn Away

by meyari



Series: Don't Turn Away [1]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Apocalypse, M/M, Non Consensual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-02
Updated: 2011-05-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 02:36:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meyari/pseuds/meyari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vampires take over Metropolis and the world, consuming and converting everyone around them.  Lex has to stop their queen and save the world, though he isn't sure whether Clark will be on his side or against him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> off-screen non-con of the het variety, Vampiric enslavement

"Damn. How long are they going to follow me?" Lex whispered, trying to control his panting while he cast about for a hiding place.

He'd managed to work his way from his hidden lab under the Luthor tower to what used to be the Met U campus over the course of the day. It would have been a great deal easier if the infected were truly vampires, unable to bear the touch of the sun but Lex hadn't gotten that lucky. They didn't like sunshine but they were quite capable of dealing with it if they so chose. Unfortunately for him it was getting close to 4:00 pm. The sun was sliding towards the horizon and soon all of the sleeping vampires would be out hunting. The military had long since cut off the power to Metropolis, sending the shining city into darkness once the sun set.

Lex could hear the hunters closing in behind him. Metropolis had changed so much in the last several months since the vampire's 'Queen' had taken over. The vast majority of the population had fled the area. He passed houses with smashed windows. Some houses had been boarded up. One large house he passed had captured normal people in it, a herd that sobbed and moaned to be freed. Lex avoided that house. The vampires that guarded the herds were as much a danger to him as the ones following him.

"Where?" Lex breathed, scanning the area for a good hiding place. He had to throw his hunters off the trail yet again.

There was a stack of discarded garbage cans in the front yard of one formerly grand frat house. Lex nodded slowly as he checked his trench coat's pocket for the serum hidden within. Still safe in their little lead case. Lex squirmed into the stack of cans, being careful of the trash. He did his best not to disturb any of the cans, bottles or bags of rotting trash, secreting himself inside one overturned recyclable can that wasn't too noxious. He could just see the street through the stack of bins. He did his best not to breathe.

Lex stopped breathing entirely as his hunters appeared. They were 'beautiful people', highly attractive teenagers and young adults transformed into monsters that hunted human prey. They looked remarkably normal from a distance. They were still dressed in trendy clothes. Most of the girls still had carefully done makeup and hair. Their true nature became clear as they came closer. Blood streaked their clothes. Most had blood on their lips or under their unnaturally long nails. They sniffed the air as they approached, hunting for him.

Lex stayed still and quiet in his recyclables can.

This was yet another blessing that had come from his meteor affliction: he had no scent for them to follow. Lex took on the scent of whatever was around him, making it impossible to track him by smell. Better still, their disease didn't affect him. He'd learned that they day their 'queen' had come to him. Lana had crashed through the skylight in a black leather outfit that was the opposite of the girl he'd come to know in his years in Smallville. Lex had turned to confront her, barely believing what he was seeing. She had knocked him across the room with strength that he'd only felt from Clark before. Lex had barely had time to register the shock before Lana's fangs were buried in his throat. He couldn't even scream as she sucked his life away.

'Dear Lex,' Lana had purred as she dropped him to the floor. 'Too bad. I would have liked to add you to my harem but it's not to be. You're too smart and too dangerous. You simply have to go.'

One of his hunters kicked a can out of his stack, snapping Lex out of his flashback. He refused to move, biting his lip so that he wouldn't make a sound. He did allow himself to clench his hands into fists. Sweat prickled on his scalp and the back of his neck as his heart tried to beat through his sternum.

"He's not here," the blond girl complained.

"He has to be here," the tallest boy said, looking equally frustrated. "You saw the tracks. He's here somewhere."

"If he is then he's invisible," the girl huffed. "There's only trash and those stupid cows in the house crying. There's no way he could have gotten into the trash without us hearing him. There's no room in there. He's not in any of the houses either. He must have doubled back and left us a false trail. I'm tired and I'm horny and I'm hungry. This blows."

"We can always get a quick snack and then hunt him down," one of the more submissive looking girls offered. "Someone around here must have seen him. Bald guy in a black trench coat? He'd stick out like a sore thumb."

They all nodded, heading away to the nearest herd house. The tallest boy sniffed the air, peering around. He fairly quickly gave up and followed the others, not wanting to be left alone. Lex waited until they were out of hearing range and then carefully eased out of his hiding place. He almost expected them to be waiting just out of sight but no one appeared to attack him. Lex didn't relax as he started moving again. He had to get to Clark. If he could just free Clark from Lana's control Lex was certain that together they could save the world.

It was well after dark when Lex finally reached Lana's lair at the former Tri Psi sorority house. Darkness had actually favored him, rather to Lex's surprise. Careful sneaking from shadow to shadow had gotten him right to Lana's doorstep. The house wasn't the heavily protected fortress that Lex would have expected. Not one window was broken. The lawn was still manicured. The shrubs were still well tended. Lex supposed as he sneaked around the house checking for open windows that it made sense that Lana wouldn't feel the need to have heavy walls around her. She had her powers and she had Clark. What else did she need?

The basement had an unlocked window that Lex was able to squeeze through after removing his coat. It took some wriggling but Lex had lost weight in the last couple of months. He carefully made his way upstairs, avoiding the occasional dead body tossed casually into a corner. The mansion smelled like blood, alcohol and sex. The perfume that overlaid everything couldn't wipe out the smell of death that shrouded the sorority. Thankfully the house's smell masked the lingering garbage smell on Lex, which allowed him to hide in a closet as two female vampires came from deeper in the house.

"She really should share," one skinny brunette vampire complained as she stomped huffily past Lex's closet hiding place. "I mean come on, she's new here. We've been here a lot longer than she has. We should get to feed on him too."

"Shut _up,_" the redhead hissed, smacking her friend's arm. "You want to end up like Buffy? We're lucky that Lana didn't decide to start over with all new people. We're taking over the town for her and that's enough."

"I know, I know," the brunette whined as they headed out the front door, "but come _on!_ He's gorgeous and it'd be cool to have those powers. I want to get to fry someone with my eyes."

"Yeah, that'd be so cool," the redhead sighed dreamily as she shut the door. "I'd like to suck his lollipop too but no way. Queen Lana doesn't share her boy toy."

Lex kept his jaw firmly locked so that he wouldn't curse. He'd been right. The virus changed the victims but Lana's powers came from a different source. Lex knew exactly who 'he' had to be. Only Clark could manage to fall in love with the queen vampire.

Lex snuck up the stairs to the second floor, treading carefully so that none of the steps creaked. He could hear voices from the back bedrooms. The rest of the house seemed empty. He couldn't be sure of it, so Lex carefully headed towards the voices, hoping that he'd find Clark. He had two syringes of the serum, one for each of them. He wasn't sure Clark had been turned but it was quite likely given Lana's obsession with him. Lex hadn't seen Clark out hunting with the others since this all began but Lana regularly brought prey into the sorority. It was quite possible that at least some of them went to Clark, though Lex was hoping that Lana was the culprit for those deaths. Lex froze as the distantly heard voices resolved into something he could understand.

"Please…"

The weak plea made Lex wish that he had hair on the back of his neck to stand up. It took all of his willpower not to barge straight into the room. He did test the door to see if he could sneak in. It was securely locked. Lex bit down firmly on the urge to curse a blue streak. He fished in his pocket for lock picks, wondering if he could unlock the door quietly enough to be unnoticed.

"Please Lana…" Clark sounded like he was in agony, weak, tortured.

"Oh darling," Lana said, her voice fully of cloying sympathy, "I'm sorry. The sun's gone down. You slept just a little too long. Don't worry. Tomorrow I'll get you up earlier so that you can sunbathe for a bit. Don't worry. I'll make it up to you."

"Lana…" Clark gasped, the weakness changing to alarm. "No. Please don't. Please!"

"Shhh, it's okay," Lana crooned. "Let me. Let me take care of you, darling. You know I love you. I'll always love you."

Lex eased to his knees to work on the lock. He peeked first, trying to see into the room. He couldn't see anything. As Lana's crooning and Clark's pleading continued he decided he was grateful that he couldn't see anything. He didn't want to see this. His imagination supplied the scene to him in entirely too vivid a fashion. Lana didn't seem like the type to turn rapist but she also didn't seem to him to be the sort to embrace becoming the Queen of the Vampires.

"No…" Clark's strangled gasp of agony made Lex bolt to his feet, his lock picks forgotten.

"Mmm, oh darling," Lana sighed as if she'd just had the best orgasm ever, "I love you so much!"

Lex shuddered, contemplating breaking it down to get at Clark and Lana. It would reveal him to the vampires but he couldn't bear this any longer. Fabric rustled inside the room. Lex started at the sound of Lana's heels approaching the door. He darted into another room, leaving the door slightly open so that he could see her. Lana walked by, humming quietly as she licked her lips. They were stained red with blood.

Lex eased out of his hiding place, checking that Lana wasn't coming back before hurrying into the bedroom where Clark was being held. He didn't know how Lana was keeping Clark from stopping her but he intended to find out and free him no matter what it cost personally.

The bed was a four poster with heavy curtains draped around it. They were dark green velvet with strange dark matted spots. It took a moment's study for Lex to realize that the dark spots were dried bloody handprints. Lex didn't see Clark anywhere else in the room so he went carefully to the bed and eased the curtains aside.

"Clark…" Lex breathed, staring down at his farm boy with horror.

He was thinner, nearly skeletal. His skin was waxy. His hair looked flat and lank. His neck and shoulders were covered with bite marks that didn't seem to be healing. His throat had a fresh wound that slowly trickled blood as if Clark's heart was shutting down. Lex crawled onto the bed, pressing the bloody sheet against Clark's neck to get the bleeding to stop.

"No, please…" Clark whispered, his eyes fluttering open. He blinked, staring at Lex. "Lex?"

"It's me, Clark," Lex said, keeping the pressure tight against the wound.

"Need to go," Clark whispered, alarm filling his eyes. "She'll kill you, drain you."

"She already did," Lex said, trying to hush Clark. He stiffened as he realized that Clark was naked under the bloodstained sheet. He refused to consider what the non-brown stains said about what Lana had done to Clark. "I got better. They can't kill me and they can't infect me. I'm immune."

"She'll find another way to kill you," Clark hissed, attempting to raise one arm to push Lex away. It fell across his belly as if he didn't have the strength to move even that much. "Go!"

"No," Lex snapped, glaring at him. "You're the source of her power. If I get rid of the mutated virus in your system she won't be as strong and we can stop her."

"Not the virus that makes her that way," Clark said, trying to sit up and barely raising his head before he flopped back onto the pillow. "It's my blood. It's me. Too weak. Can't stop her, Lex. She keeps draining me, keeps me away from the sun, doesn't feed me. Can't stop her. You gotta go. Don't want her to hurt you!"

Lex pressed a little too hard against Clark's neck and he gasped, displaying fangs that made Lex back away, off of the bed. Clark whimpered, nodding and gesturing feebly with his fingertips against the sheet for Lex to run. The fangs were visible in his mouth as he mouthed the word 'go'.

"No," Lex said, climbing back onto the bed and stripping off his trench coat. "Clark, I have a serum that will cure Lana. It will turn her back into a normal person but it has to be delivered to the heart or it won't work."

He snapped open the lead container, pulling out the syringes. The meteor rock inside glowed briefly but Lex paid no attention to that. He shut the case and laid the two syringes on the pillow next to Clark. Clark stared at Lex, shivering convulsively and panting. Lex braced himself and took one of the syringes, pressing it against Clark's chest. It dimpled his skin but didn't penetrate. Lex cursed under his breath and shoved as hard as he could. The needle bent.

"Damn it," Lex snarled. He set the useless syringe aside, considering his options. "I'm not fast or strong enough to stop Lana, Clark."

"Then go," Clark huffed, painful disappointment in his eyes. "I'll be fine. She won't kill me."

"No, she'll just kill the rest of the world," Lex said, allowing a wry smile to curl his lips. "There's no other way."

Lex carefully took Clark's shoulders, easing him up and into his lap. He was so thin, so very thin. It was like holding a collection of bones with skin stretched over them instead of a human being. Clark whimpered. Lex arranged the two of them so that Clark's mouth was at his neck.

"No," Clark mumbled against Lex's skin.

"Do it," Lex hissed. "I've been drained seven times now. I won't die, Clark. I can't die. Just do it. You'll be strong enough to stop her, to save everyone."

"I can't!" Clark said, struggling weakly against Lex's arms.

"Clark, if you don't everyone will die," Lex said, letting his voice slide into the harsh Luthor tone of voice that he had always hated. "Do it! Do it before Lana kills everyone you care about. Chloe's gone. Martha and Jonathan haven't been seen in weeks. The whole city's been quarantined. You're the world's only hope!"

Lex made his voice stay strong. He didn't allow his arms to shake as he held Clark's mouth against his neck. Inside his weaker half was screaming at him to run away. Clark hesitated, still struggling against what had to be.

"Clark," Lex whispered, shutting his eyes, "do it, damn it! Do it before I lose my nerve!"

"I'm sorry," Clark whispered, opening his mouth wide.

Clark's fangs hurt just as much as the other seven vampire's fangs. They slid into Lex's neck and made him jerk like he'd touched a live wire. Lex held Clark in place, mouthing prayers to a god he hadn't believed in for years. The first suck of his blood made Lex shudder. The way Clark moaned made Lex's cock harden in spite of his revulsion. Clark sounded like Lex's blood was the best thing he'd ever tasted, like Lex was manna from heaven. The second suck made Lex's head swim. The third made his arms lose their grip. Clark held himself up, still latched onto Lex's neck. The fifth made Lex collapse against Clark.

Clark was bigger, bulkier. Lex's eyes drifted shut as his body was drained of blood. He fancied that as he was sucked dry Clark was restored, his body going back to the Greek god status it had held before the world came to an end. Lex moaned, his erection collapsing as his heart started fluttering in arrhythmia.

"Lex," Clark breathed, finally releasing Lex's neck. He was cradling Lex now, not the other way around.

"Clark?" Lex whispered, forcing his eyes open. He smiled, relieved. "Better. Good. Go. Stop her."

"You're…" Clark whispered, blood staining his lips and chin while tears ran down his cheeks.

"Go!" Lex whispered harshly. "Stop her, Clark. Don't let this… be in vain."

Clark nodded, scrubbing the blood off of his chin with the back of one hand. His body had been restored but he wasn't the same as he had been. He'd been a bit gangly from the tail end of his adolescence. Now he was bigger, bulkier than he had been. As Clark laid him on the bloody bed sheets Lex thought that Clark looked as though he'd aged a few years in the last few months or perhaps it had been in the last couple of minutes.

"To the heart?" Clark asked, taking up the undamaged syringe of serum.

"Yes," Lex whispered, darkness edging in as he started to gray out. Lex wasn't sure if it was real or his imagination but before the darkness claimed him he thought he heard Clark whisper, "I love you."

+++++

Clark shuddered as the curtains surrounding the bed fell shut. He could just barely hear Lex's heart beating. It was so weak, fluttering like a bird with a broken wing. Once Clark had given in and bitten Lex, he hadn't been able to resist the taste of Lex's blood. He was still starving, his stomach rumbling as though all the blood he'd drained from Lex had already been immediately absorbed into his system. Clark rubbed his hands over his arms, trying to brush off the dried blood that flecked his skin. He felt slimy, as though he could never get clean.

Clark tried not to think about all of the things that Lana had done to him. He wasn't sure he'd be able to cope if he did. She'd taken everything from him: his family, Chloe, Lex, the world, sunshine, even his highly limited humanity. He'd become her personal blood bank and worse still, her personal sex toy. Clark wrenched his thoughts away from those memories, listening for Lana and the other vampires.

He heard Lana talking to the other girls outside the house. He heard the people who'd been captured and turned into cattle crying for someone to save them. He heard the military outside of Metropolis killing the few vampires that they'd captured. They were discussing killing the ordinary people who'd been captured as 'contaminated' as well. Most of the state was safe but Metropolis and Smallville were ghost towns with nothing but vampires and prey left. Lana had destroyed everything around her while Clark was too weak to stop her. He couldn't hear his mom or dad. He couldn't hear Chloe. No matter how hard he listened he couldn't hear them anywhere.

Lex's heart fluttered, nearly stopping.

Clark stopped rubbing his arms and cast about for something to wear. He found a pair of men's sweatpants that had blood spots on them. They weren't too horrible after living on that bed for so long so Clark put them on. He didn't bother with shoes or a shirt. He didn't see the point. Lana had seen everything already and taken advantage of all of it. He had nothing left to hide from her. The thought hurt worse than a chunk of kryptonite bigger than he was. The syringe felt incredibly fragile in his hand. Hopefully it was a way to end this, at least for Lana and the rest of the world. He was trapped as a vampire forever. The other syringe had proven that. He prayed that Lex was right about the serum as he went down the stairs and out the front door to confront Lana.

"Lana!" Clark snapped, glaring at the girl who used to be his whole world. All he felt now was revulsion.

"Clark," Lana said, staring at him in obvious shock that slid into false sympathy. "Darling, you shouldn't be up. You're not well."

"You mean you don't want me up," Clark said, his teeth elongating as anger flared in his chest. "You want me weak and helpless, there for you to abuse at will."

The others backed off, staring at the two of them with fear. There were a dozen or so of the vampires on the front lawn, there to listen to Lana's latest directives. Lana widened her eyes and pouted her mouth in that 'I can't believe you'd say something like that to me' expression that used to twist Clark around her little finger. This time it made his stomach tighten into a knot of disgust. How had he ever fallen for that?

"I just wanted to keep you safe, Darling," Lana said in a cloyingly sweet voice. "You mean so much to me. I couldn't let you be hurt."

"So you hurt me yourself, over and over and over," Clark said, his lip curling. "What did I ever see in you? You don't care about me. You only care about what I could do for you."

It wasn't true. Clark knew it wasn't. The Lana he'd know since childhood had been a good girl, a little selfish and spoiled but good. Something had changed in her after she went off to Paris. She'd never been the same. Becoming a Tri Psi and a vampire had brought out everything bad in her. Her expression flicked through the 'I'm hurt' expression to the one that looked like she was thinking about slapping him for being so mean, to one that he'd never seen on her before she became a vampire. He'd never seen it pointed at him ever.

"Darling," Lana said in a cold, threatening tone of voice, "I think you had better go back to bed."

"No," Clark said, going down the stairs to stand in front of her. "Never again, Lana."

He expected her to say something, to make some demand or plea. Instead she spun and kicked Clark in the gut. He went flying across the lawn into the shrubs around the house. Clark kept his grip on the syringe, glaring at Lana. He wasn't strong enough. He could feel that she was as strong as he was, maybe stronger. He needed sun or he needed blood. It was about midnight so the only hope he had of gaining strength was to feed again. The thought of feeding made him want to throw up.

"Stop him!" Lana shouted at the others. "Stop him or I'll feed on you!"

The girls hesitated but several of the guys, most of which Clark recognized as football players, ran forward, grabbing him. Clark pushed down his revulsion at the thought of feeding and caught the biggest guy by the chin. His fangs grew automatically. Clark bit down on the jock's neck, draining him of blood. He heard the others shout. Lana was screaming at them in the background. Clark shuddered at how good the blood tasted, drinking until heat suddenly consumed the jock. His body dissolved into ash, making Clark snarl at Lana.

"Oh no Darling," Lana said, smirking at him. "You're not going to win that way."

"Give up, Lana," Clark said, his body thrumming with the strength he'd gained from the jock's blood. "Every one of them that you send at me is going to be consumed the same way. Everyone you send against me is going to fall. You're going to fall."

"No I won't, Darling," Lana said, raising her chin and glaring. "I won't let that happen. Besides, I know that you love me. You wouldn't hurt me, no matter how confused you are right now."

Clark shuddered, her words washing over him like a slimy ocean wave. He ran at her, shifting into super speed. He couldn't reach full speed yet but he was still faster than any of the others including Lana. He slammed the syringe into her chest, injecting the serum into her heart. Lana gasped, staring at the needle in her chest before turning her eyes up to him. She swayed as her eyes rolled back into her head. She collapsed backwards onto the grass, lying like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Oh my God," one of the original Tri Psis gasped, staring at him, at Lana and then back at him. "Oh my _God!_"

"This is over," Clark declared, glaring at them all. "Don't try to run. I won't let you get away. You're not strong enough or fast enough to escape me. Only Lana was and now she's a normal human again."

"That's not possible," the other original Tri Psi said, staring at Lana in shock.

"Yes it is," Clark said, picking Lana up and throwing her over his shoulder. "Call all the others back in. This ends tonight."

"And if we don't go along with this?" one of the guys asked.

"Then I feed on you to restore my strength and torch your body once I'm done," Clark snarled, curling his lip to expose his still-bloody fangs. "Your choice. Live as a human or die as my prey."

They all backed off several paces, looking terrified. Clark turned and headed back into the house, carrying Lana back up to the room where Lex lay. He dumped Lana on the floor, shuddering that he'd touched her. He pulled open the curtains around the bed, expecting to see Lex waxy and pale on the stained sheets.

"Wow," Clark breathed, running his fingers along the spot on Lex's neck that he'd bitten a few minutes earlier.

Lex's skin was already pink. His eyes were shut but it looked like sleep, not a coma. His neck was nearly fully healed. The fang marks had faded to faint pink dots on the side of his neck. Lex's eyes fluttered at Clark's touch. He blinked up at Clark, smiling tiredly.

"I injected Lana," Clark said. "She's out cold. I need more of the serum, Lex. Is there any more anywhere?"

"Fortified lab under Luthor tower," Lex whispered, coughing as though his throat was too dry. "Water?"

"Just a sec," Clark said. He sped to the kitchen, got a pitcher of water and a glass, and then sped back up to the bedroom. "Here. Drink as much as you want."

Clark held the water for Lex, helping him drink. Lex drained the glass, then a second one, and most of a third. The more he drank the better he looked. By the time he finished the third glass he was sitting up on his own, looking every bit his normal self. Lex looked at Clark and then down at Lana sprawled on the floor.

"She's alive?" Lex asked, his voice cold as ice.

"Yes," Clark said, shuddering. "I couldn't kill her."

"Of course not," Lex said, disappointment in his eyes.

"No, it's not that," Clark said. He could almost see Lex locking his heart away. "I won't kill, not even her. She did things to me that I don't want to remember but I won't kill her. It's… I'm sorry but I think she should face the consequences for what she did to me, to Metropolis and everyone else. She needs to be punished for her crimes, not be killed out of hand."

Lex's eyes went wide as Clark explained. He chuckled and shook his head, smiling fondly at Clark. Clark blushed, refusing to smile the way he wanted to. His fangs were oscillating in his mouth, growing and retreating in response to his fluctuating emotions. Lex didn't need to see that, not after having been fed on so many times.

"Only you, Clark," Lex said, amused. "There's a supply of the serum in my laboratory under the Luthor tower. I don't know if I have enough for all of the vampires that Lana created but it should be easy enough to make more of it. It's not a complicated formula. It was stabilizing it that was the hard part."

"I'll take you there," Clark promised, standing up. He picked Lex up, not willing to let him try and stand when he'd been so close to death just a few minutes ago.

"Clark," Lex growled, glaring at him, "I can walk on my own."

"Not as fast as we need to go," Clark said, letting his lips quirk in a little smile that was more like Lex's smiles than his normal ones. Having Lex in his arms had made his fangs grow again.

Clark sped out of the house, across town and to the Luthor tower. Everything had changed so much while he'd been trapped in Lana's bedroom. Everyone was gone. Cars littered the streets, many of them with dead bodies rotting inside. Clark's eyes had adapted to the dark when Lana infected him. He could see everything despite the lack of lights. The Luthor Tower was as dark as ever other building. It looked abandoned, most of the windows gaping wells of darkness.

"You've never done that before," Lex gasped as Clark returned to normal speed and set him down in front of the Tower.

"I kind of think we've gone past secrets by now," Clark sighed, scuffing his bare feet against the sidewalk. "I'm a vampire. Mom, Dad and Chloe are all gone. Lana tried to destroy the world. I sucked your blood, for heaven's sake. It's more important to stop the others than to keep a secret that has no purpose anymore."

"True," Lex said, his expression wistful. He probably thought that Clark couldn't see the longing in his eyes given how dark it was. Clark could see it easily. "The entrance to my secret lab is around the corner. Unfortunately I don't think I have anything else for you to wear. You're going to have to raid a store for something besides bloody sweatpants."

"That would be nice," Clark said, shuddering as he followed Lex. "These are disgusting."

Lex's lab was hidden behind a secret door that blended perfectly into the exterior of the building. Clark followed him down into a subbasement room that surprisingly had lights and power. Computers blinked and displayed data on some sort of experiment. A ham radio sat in one corner, the volume turned low. It looked like something that Lex had cobbled together from spare parts. One bookshelf in the corner was covered with cans of food. A garbage can next to it held neatly washed cans. Several big bottles of water showed where Lex had been getting his drinking water.

"You had this all along?" Clark asked, staring around the room.

"If by that you mean one small laboratory, a generator that's running out of gas, and a bucket for a toilet, yes," Lex said, smirking at Clark. "It's not quite the Mansion but it's been home since Lana took over Metropolis."

He pulled out an obviously heavy insulated box, setting it on one of the counters. Clark came closer only to stumble backwards when Lex opened the box and revealed a chunk of kryptonite that was nearly as long as Clark's forearm. He nearly fell, collapsing back against the door. Lex started at Clark's reaction and snapped the lid of the box shut again.

"Damn it, I forgot about that," Lex said, supporting Clark as he regained his balance.

"I didn't realize you knew," Clark panted, straightening back up as the pain faded.

"It was rather obvious, Clark," Lex said, his lips quirking in an amused smirk. "There were a lot of obvious things that I never commented on."

"Why?" Clark asked, surprised. He'd always assumed that Lex had believed his excuses, that he hadn't seen anything conclusive.

"Because you're my friend, Clark," Lex said, sighing. "My _only_ friend. I kept hoping that you'd trust me enough to tell me someday."

Clark winced, nodding. They didn't discuss it any further as Lex gathered up his supplies. Clark ran them back to the Tri Psi house, nodding approval as he sped inside. Almost all of the vampires were there. There were about thirty of them. Clark could hear three sneaking away to the north. One girl was hiding in one of the herd houses. Clark set Lex down and went after the ones who'd run. The hiding girl submitted as soon Clark appeared in front of her, sobbing for mercy. The three jocks who'd run towards the north fought. Clark's hunger won out over his determination not to feed again. He bit the first jock to attack him, taking enough blood from him that he collapsed, his heart barely beating. The other two gave up when faced with Clark's red eyes and blood-stained fangs. Clark carried all three of them back to the Tri Psi at super speed, depositing them in front of Lex who was calmly taking out syringes to treat the vampires.

Clark stayed off to the side, out of range of the kryptonite. It took about an hour to treat all of the vampires that Lana had created. Once they'd collapsed unconscious on the lawn Clark freed the herds, sending them towards the military gathered to the south of Metropolis.

"How did this happen?" one of the women asked, clutching Clark's hand desperately. "How did you free us finally?"

"Lex Luthor found a cure," Clark said, smiling a carefully close-lipped smile at her. "He's watching over the vampires, including their 'queen'. The sooner the military gets here the better it will be. You should hurry. Tell the military to hurry back here. Lex is alone and we don't know how long they'll stay asleep."

"Thank you!" she breathed, squeezing Clark's hands before running towards the edge of town with the others. He heard someone stealing a car, so it wouldn't be too long before the military arrived.

"That's the last of them," Clark said, sighing as he returned to Lex's side. Lex had arranged the fallen vampires on the lawn and was checking their life signs one by one.

"Good," Lex said, smiling. He stood and headed over to the case. "Come here. I have an idea of how to save you too."

"You can't save me, Lex," Clark said, sighing. "You can't get the needle through my skin."

"If we use the meteor rock to weaken you it should penetrate," Lex said. His expression was a mix of determination and desperate worry. "I know that you lose your powers around it. Between the meteor rock and the serum you should be restored."

Clark bit his lip, hesitating. Lana hadn't been able to bite him until after she'd infected him with the virus. It had weakened him somehow. He'd felt like his body was changing, mutating the longer the virus was in him. When he'd initially been infected, his skin's invulnerability had faded, leaving him vulnerable to Lana's bite. After that first bite she'd kept him weak by denying him sunshine, food, water and blood. She'd done everything in her power to keep him from getting any strength back, which meant that she could keep feeding on him. Even so, it had gotten harder and harder for her fangs to pierce his skin, which he thought was part of why she'd taken to raping him too.

Now that he'd fed several times he felt stronger than ever. Clark rubbed his chest, pretty sure that the virus had changed him too much to be saved. He wanted to be free of the blood lust and light sensitivity but in his heart he knew that it wasn't to be.

"Well, we can try it," Clark said hesitantly, "but I'm not sure it'll work Lex. I think if we'd tried it before I fed it would have worked. I'm not sure it will now."

"The virus couldn't have adapted to your system that fast," Lex said, frowning. His expression said 'could it?'

Neither of them replied to the unspoken question. Clark came over and sat on the steps next to Lex's box, bracing himself for what was coming. Lex opened the box and the kryptonite immediately started glowing brightly. Clark gasped, collapsing sideways on the stairs. He let Lex roll him over on his back, pleading with his eyes for Lex to hurry. His whole body was cramping. It felt like he couldn't breathe, like his heart was going to stop at any second. Lex's expression was grim and determined as he took a syringe and pressed it against Clark's chest.

"Damn it," Lex whispered, jabbing Clark's chest with his full strength behind him.

"Hurts," Clark whimpered, tears rolling out of his eyes as the needle bent. "Please Lex! Use the kryptonite. Kill me!"

"No!" Lex snapped, tossing the syringe away and snapping the lid shut on the box. "No. I won't do that Clark. I won't kill you. There has to be a way to do this. I'll find it. No matter how long it takes I'll find it, I swear."

Clark swallowed against the surge of blood lust that overwhelmed him as the kryptonite's effect faded. His hunger was almost a physical thing now, clawing at him from the inside and demanding that he feed. The virus had to have interacted with his body differently. Either it had mutated once it had encountered his blood or his body had adapted to it somehow. It didn't matter. There was no cure for Clark. He sat up and eased away from Lex, refusing to open his mouth.

"Clark?" Lex asked, reaching for him.

"No," Clark gasped, speeding a couple of yards away from Lex. "I'm sorry Lex. The hunger is back. It's worse. I can't let you touch me."

"Clark!" Lex said, standing and staring at him. "Don't turn away. Give me a chance. I'll find a cure."

"I can't," Clark said, fighting down the hunger that demanded he drain Lex dry. "I can't!"

Clark sped away, refusing to listen to Lex's cry or the pain in his voice. Clark didn't know where he'd go ultimately but for now there was one place that he knew he'd be safe and where the world would be safe from him. His human family was gone. All he had left was his birth father and the Fortress of Solitude.

+++++

Lex looked out over Metropolis. It had taken nearly three years to undo all the damage that Lana had caused. She was still in jail and was likely to stay there for the rest of her life. The jury hadn't believed that becoming a vampire could so completely change a personality. The inconsistencies in her testimony had made her claim of not remembering what had happened doubtful. The majority of the other vampires had been thrown in prison as well, though for shorter terms on average. Lex had spent a great deal of money ensuring that all of their victims received appropriate mental and physical care. He'd publically dedicated the last three years to rebuilding Metropolis. Privately he'd spent the entire time searching for Clark Kent, the last vampire.

"Another Blur sighting, sir," Mercy said from the door. "We've yet to capture the Blur on film but he does seem to match your descriptions."

"Thank you Mercy," Lex said, not turning from his study of the city's skyline. "That will be all for tonight."

"Yes sir."

She departed, leaving Lex alone with his thoughts. Night was starting to fall. It was a grey evening, the sky hidden behind heavy cloud cover. There was no sunset this evening, just a gradual darkening into true night that the city fought with bright lights on every street corner. It was nearly as bright as day once full dark fell. Ever since Queen Lana, Metropolis had become obsessed with pushing the darkness away. Lex sighed, heading inside to get a brandy. He swirled the amber liquid, looking into it as if he could see the one face he wanted by looking hard enough.

"I haven't given up, Clark," Lex murmured. "I will find you and I will find a way to cure you."

"You can't cure me."

Lex gasped and whirled, staring at the Blur. It was the Blur, a man-sized black blur standing at the door to his balcony as if this was a perfectly normal occurrence. Even with the endless motion that had given him the nickname Lex knew it was Clark. He would know that shape anywhere, awake or asleep. Lex hurried over, attempting to grab Clark before he could speed away yet again.

"Don't leave!" Lex pleaded as Clark evaded his hands. "Clark, please!"

"That's not my name anymore," Clark said softly.

He stilled so that he became visible. He was still Clark, with the same messy dark hair and green eyes. His skin wasn't as golden as it had been. He looked paler, as though the sun was something he saw only occasionally. He wasn't wearing his normal red and blue flannel. Instead he was garbed entirely in black, a black T-shirt, black pants and black boots. It looked odd on Clark. Lex slowly reached out to Clark, his heart exulting when Clark let him take his hand.

"You don't have to hide, Clark," Lex said, squeezing his fingers.

"I can barely stand here, Lex," Clark admitted, his fangs showing as he spoke. "The hunger hasn't gotten better over time. It's gotten worse. I can't be close to people without needing to feed."

"Its okay, Clark," Lex said, keeping his grip on Clark's hand. "You know that I can't die. You can feed on me and it will be all right."

"That's…" Clark gasped, backing away as his eyes flared red. "Lex, I can't do that. You don't understand what you're offering."

"If it lets you rejoin humanity then I have no problem with it, Clark," Lex declared, following Clark to keep his grip on his hand. "Let me drink a bunch of water first and I'll be up in minutes instead of an hour or so."

Clark shook his head no, backing up until he was pressed against the wall. His eyes glimmered red. Lex wondered if it was meant hunger or fear until Clark shuddered and looked away. Naked lust swept across his face, startling Lex. He'd never seen an expression like that on Clark's face before but it had been years. Clark wasn't an innocent farm boy anymore.

"You want more than blood," Lex breathed, tightening his grip on Clark's hand.

"Yes," Clark whispered, shame replacing lust on his face. "I can't do that, Lex. After what L-Lana did to me, I _can't_ treat you that way."

"Clark," Lex said as he cupped that beautiful cheek, "it wouldn't be rape with me. I wanted you from the first moment I met you."

Clark started, finally turning to stare at Lex. His eyes fluctuated between green and red. His mouth had dropped open so Lex could see the way his fangs grew when his eyes went red and retreated when they faded back to green. It was fascinating to watch.

"You never…" Clark said, licking his lips. His eyes went solidly red.

"Of course not," Lex said, smirking. "You were underage. In Smallville, Kansas two males together would be bad enough. I had no desire to be arrested for statutory rape of a minor. Besides, you were always in love with Lana."

"I didn't… see her clearly," Clark said with a shudder. His eyes faded to green. "I didn't know that she was that… evil."

"I don't think she was evil originally," Lex said, running a thumb over Clark's cheekbone. He smiled at the way Clark's eyes flared red again. "She changed. You didn't see the changes is all."

"Don't," Clark moaned, trying to escape from Lex's touch.

"Clark, don't turn away," Lex murmured. "I meant it. I've wanted you since the first moment I saw you. I never stopped looking for you while you were gone. If my blood will help you live a normal life again, so be it. If I can share my nights with you then so much the better. I've wanted this for years."

Clark groaned, his head going back to thump gently against the wall. Lex shivered at the way his fangs shone inside his mouth. Clark's tongue flicked out between the tips of his fangs to lick his lips, sending a jolt of pure arousal through Lex. Clark's pants filled out, matching the sudden tightness of Lex's pants.

"We shouldn't," Clark said, his eyes a little bit glazed despite their red hue.

"Clark, everything has changed," Lex said, cupping his cheeks with both hands. "There are no reasons to hide anymore. I want you. I want you here, by me. I'm willing to literally do anything for you, including letting you feed on me every night as much as you have to. You can be so much more than you are. Please. Don't turn away. Let me help you."

"G-go get some water," Clark breathed, his voice husky with lust.

Lex smiled and pulled Clark into his bedroom. He drank enough water that he felt like his stomach was sloshing. Lex slowly stripped his clothes off, smiling as Clark did the same. They eased into bed together, Lex being careful of Clark's lingering issues. Lana had so much more to answer for than just the destruction of Metropolis. She'd scarred Clark in ways that were so much worse than merely illegal.

"It's okay," Lex crooned. "You can touch me. It's okay, Clark."

"Lex," Clark moaned, the word broken between need and fear.

He touched Lex as though he thought he was going to hurt him. He glanced up at Lex after every little brush, his eyes oscillating between red and green as the lust and fear battled inside of his heart. Lex let him take his time. Clark needed it to be able to get over his fear. Clark started kissing Lex's body, working his way from Lex's stomach up to his neck.

"Do it," Lex breathed, gently wrapping his arms around Clark's shoulders. "It's okay, Clark. Take what you need from me."

"Oh Rao, Lex…"

Lex didn't have a chance to ask who or what 'Rao' was. Clark's fangs slowly bit into his neck. It started as pain but quickly turned into pleasure. The way Clark rocked against Lex's body, the slow pull of his lips and fangs against Lex's flesh transmuted the pain into something so much more. Lex groaned as a rush of endorphins combined with the slow loss of blood to make his head swim. He could hear himself whimpering, pleading with Clark but he had no control over his voice. Clark's hand slid down Lex's body, stroking his erection in a gentle-firm grip that pushed Lex over the edge into the most powerful orgasm he'd ever had.

"Lex? Are you all right? Lex?"

Lex blinked, staring blurrily up at Clark's worried expression. There was blood on his lips. Lex shuddered and moaned, his groin trying valiantly to respond. Clark blinked in obvious surprise. Lex took a deep breath, smiling at him. He raised a hand to cup Clark's cheek, unable to control the trembling of his fingers.

"I'm fine," Lex said, his voice a weak whisper that trembled like an aspen leaf in the wind. "That was… incredible, Clark."

"Really?" Clark asked, blushing as he licked his lips.

"Really," Lex said, grinning. "More water so you can do it again. Damn!"

Clark started laughing, pulling Lex into his arms. He sighed happily, pulling the covers up over the two of them. Sometime while Lex had been out Clark must have cleaned the two of them up. Lex draped himself over Clark's chest, smiling at the strong heartbeat under his ear. Clark ran his fingers over Lex's scalp, sighing. Lex felt his strength returning as his body converted the water he'd drunk into new blood. After a few minutes he was back to normal.

"You really do recuperate quickly," Clark said when Lex leaned up on his elbow to study his face.

"I do," Lex said, shrugging. "I'll need to make sure I eat plenty of red meat but that's hardly a hardship. Say you'll stay, Clark. You don't need to run away and hide anymore. Clark Kent is presumed dead. You can be whoever you want to be now. Whatever identity you choose I'll help you create it. Just… stay?"

"I need to help people, Lex," Clark said, his expression conflicted. "I can't just stay here."

"Then help them," Lex said. "We can create you a costume like the other heroes. You can be one of them, saving people in need. Go back to school, get a job, help people on the side. All I ask is that you don't turn away again. Stay here. I haven't given up on curing you."

"I have," Clark sighed, his eyes looking old and sad. "There's a lot more that you need to know, Lex but you can give up on curing me. The virus mutated me. I'll always be like this. It's not a virus anymore. It's just my metabolism."

"You're sure?" Lex asked, frowning.

Clark nodded, the rock-hard certainty in his eyes convincing Lex better than any words could have. Lex thought about it and then nodded. If that was what it was, then they'd deal with it. It didn't matter.

"All right," Lex said, settling down half on top of Clark again.

"It's that easy?" Clark asked, surprise coloring his voice.

"Of course," Lex said, smirking into Clark's neck. "I'm a bald, immortal genius, Clark. I catch onto things quickly."

Clark spluttered and laughed, hugging Lex. It sounded like he hadn't laughed in a long time. Lex held Clark and made a private resolution to make sure that Clark spent more time laughing from now on than moping. It was the least that he could do for his farm boy turned vampire superhero.


	2. Hunting the Vampire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lois is certain that the master vampire escaped from Metropolis after Lex Luthor saved the city and found a cure. She sets to work (with her rookie partner Clark Kent) tracking down exactly where the Master Vampire went and what he's doing now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't intend to write a sequel to my vampire Clex story but Lois started talking in my head and wouldn't leave me alone until I got this written. My Lois muse can be nearly as obnoxious as the canon one sometimes, just a lot more competent. *g* Thus you have Lois' view of the vampire aftermath.

"I'm telling you, he's it!" Lois declared, poking Clark in the chest.

"Who's what?" Clark asked, blinking at her and backing off a step as if he was afraid of getting too close to her.

"Batman," Lois hissed, spreading her hands. "The vampire! Oh come on, Smallville. You were here. There was a big male vampire that escaped after Luthor saved everyone."

"I don't know anything about that," Clark said, backing off another step. He looked spooked, eyes wide and everything. "I escaped from the city and ran after my parents were killed. I spent three years running. Look, this isn't our assignment. Can we get back to work?"

"This _is_ work!" Lois protested, glaring at him. "We're reporters, Smallville. It's our job to seek out the truth and report it to people! We don't just take our assignments blindly. We have a responsibility to go out there and find the real news. Chloe taught you that! After everything that happened with 'Queen' Lana in this town I think we _need_ to find the truth of that last vampire!"

Clark rocked back a little on his heels, going pale. He shut his eyes and put a hand over his mouth as if he felt a little ill. Lois winced. She realized as he turned away that maybe pushing him on his first day as a real reporter wasn't the best thing to do but it was sink or swim at the Planet. He needed to get with the program or he'd end up back in the basement on obits.

"Lois," Clark said in a low, sad voice, "I was there. I know what Chloe would want. I know what happened in Metropolis and Smallville. I also know that there haven't been any vampire incidents since then. I appreciate your dedication to tracking down what happened to Chloe but can you please stop bringing it up with me? It was the worst time in my life and I lost everything until Lex found me and got me off of the streets. We have an assignment. Can we _please_ focus on that?"

His voice wobbled as he said 'please'. Lois winced at the puppy eyes behind his glasses. Damn it, the man shouldn't be that good at jerking her emotions around. The glasses were cheating. They magnified the puppy eye effect, making it twice as devastating.

"Sorry," Lois said, making a face as she turned away from those eyes. "It's a big deal for me. I _know_ that one of them got away. I know. I just don't want anyone else to go through the same thing that you and Chloe did."

Clark nodded mutely, still making the puppy eyes at her. Lois sighed and gave up. She'd get him on board with tracking down the vampire later. She could handle it by herself for now. She got Clark working on tracking down records for their City Hall story, which left her free to track down every single report and record in existence on Batman. From the pictures that she'd been able to find of him, Batman was about the same size as the master vampire was supposed to have been. He went out at night. He appeared to have super-human abilities. He was reputed to drink blood and even to carry criminals away. Some people claimed to have seen him fly. Lois nodded grimly. This had to be her prey. He wasn't getting away from her this time.

Lois worked on her private project while working to bring Clark up to speed as a reporter. He was still as goofy as she remembered from Smallville, but much more reserved. She wondered from time to time what he'd done during those years when he'd been running. The thought of the money pretty Clark could have brought in whoring on the streets with those lips and cheekbones wasn't something that she wanted to dwell on. Better to let that sleeping dog lie.

Clark was oddly reluctant about certain things, most of which she put down to what he'd gone through during his years running. He'd go out for coffee with her but he rarely drank the coffee he got. Instead he fiddled with it, taking tiny sips between turning the mug with his fingertips. He never smiled broadly, instead making sad little lip curls that barely qualified as a smile.

He hid behind his glasses, but after what he'd been through Lois couldn't blame him. It was obvious from the way he avoided touching everyone that he'd been severely sexually traumatized while he was gone. It made her want to go hunting a completely different sort of predator. She didn't. Lex was doing a good job helping Clark overcome his issues so Lois left that one alone. She might be determined to be as good of a reporter as Chloe but she wasn't inhuman. The guy deserved a break and digging into his missing years wouldn't help him at all.

"Okay, I think this is a decent draft," Clark said, offering her an edited copy of her article. "You might want to look at upgrading your spell check though."

"Jeez, Smallville," Lois protested, looking at all the red ink on her article. "It looks like you killed something on this. I didn't do that bad of a job with it, did I?"

"Yes you did," Clark said, wincing at her phrasing. "Um, I've got to go. I'm meeting Lex after work. Will you be all right tonight?"

"Go," Lois huffed, flipping a hand at him. "I'm a big girl, Clark. I can take care of myself. Go have fun."

Clark hesitated and then left her to edit her article. Lois grumbled as she worked. She needed to make another run on having Clark edit the electronic file so that she didn't have to go back and make the corrections herself. By the time she was done and she'd sent the article off to Perry it was late, well after dark. Lois headed out. She was glad the day was over. She needed to work on getting to bed sooner or she was going to collapse from sheer exhaustion one of these days.

"I have to wonder what your issue is with me, Ms. Lane," a gravely voice said behind her as she opened her car door.

"What?" Lois gasped. She whirled to find the infamous Batman studying her from a couple of yards away. "You! What are you doing here?"

His lips quirked in a little smile made her think that he was highly amused at having made her jump. She glared, her hand going to her purse for her taser, not that she thought it would work against a vampire. She studied him and realized that it wouldn't work against the armor he wore either, which made warning bells go off in the back of her mind.

"I'm aware that you've been investigating me," Batman said, standing still as a statue with his cape draped like a dark puddle around his feet. "Why?"

"Where were you during the vampire incident in Metropolis?" Lois demanded, glaring at him.

"Tibet," Batman said, cocking his head slightly. His eyes and mouth looked slightly surprised though it was hard to tell with his cowl.

"What?" Lois asked, surprised.

"I was studying martial arts in Tibet," Batman repeated, the smirk definitely back in place. "Why do you want to know?"

"Really?" Lois asked, floored. "You weren't here. No, you had to be here! You're the only person who makes sense! You have to be the vampire!"

Batman blinked at her and started chuckling. He grinned, displaying perfectly normal human teeth. Lois strode over and grabbed his chin, half of her astonished that she had that much brass while the other half was determined to see if those teeth grew once she was in biting range. They didn't. He smelled of aftershave and slightly sweaty body armor. There was no scent of blood, no smell of death around him. Lois stared at his entirely human eyes, her stomach flipping.

"Satisfied?" Batman asked, clearly highly amused. He pulled his chin out of her grip, leaving Lois standing entirely too close to him for comfort.

"Yeah fine, so you're not the vampire," Lois huffed, putting her hands on her hips and glaring harder at him. "I'll accept that. The question now is if you're not the vampire then what's with the bat suit?"

"Bats frighten me," Batman said, his voice sliding into a deeper, huskier register that made Lois shiver involuntarily. "I'm sharing the fear."

"Tibet and a bat phobia," Lois said, raising her chin and standing straighter against her fear. "Interesting. Got the time to answer some questions, Mr. Mysterious Batman?"

"Good luck with your hunt, Ms. Lane," Batman said, all but laughing at her. "I'd suggest that you look closer to home if you want to find out what happened to your 'vampire'."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Lois demanded, growling as the Batman turned and walked away. "Hey! I'm talking to you!"

He stepped behind a column and didn't come out. Lois craned her neck and then walked over. He was gone, disappeared into the cars or the columns or something. Lois stared around her for a long moment as she tried to figure out where he'd gone and how he'd disappeared. Eventually she turned and went back to her car. She sat staring at the steering wheel for a long time, her thoughts orbiting around Batman's non-growing teeth and his comment about the vampire being closer to home. She stayed up all night writing an article on Batman that combined all her research with her personal observations of the man. The article won a Pulitzer a month and a half later. Perry framed it and put it on the wall in his office. Lois clipped a copy and put it on her desk to remind her that not to giving up on the vampire story could give her rewards on the side.

"So I've decided that the Batman isn't the vampire," Lois announced a few weeks later during her customary coffee break with Clark at the neighborhood coffee shop.

"Really?" Clark said cautiously, staring at her without finishing his sip of coffee. "So you've given up?"

"No! Keep up, Smallville," Lois huffed, kicking his toe lightly. "Batman is so not the vampire. Really I'm not sure what I was thinking. It has to be someone else. Batman is just playing off of people's fear of bats and vampires, that's all. No, it's someone else, someone closer to home."

"Okay," Clark said, setting his coffee down and studying her carefully. "So who do you think it is?"

"Superman," Lois declared. She glared at the little choked noise that Clark made, leaning forward to poke him in the chest across the table they shared. "It has to be! He appeared just about the time the vampire thing ended. He's got flight like the vampire's supposed to. He never smiles openly. He's got all those powers, most of which match really closely to what Lana could do. He's even sensitive to the sun. It's gotta be him!"

"Lois…" Clark moaned, letting his chin slump to his chest. "Why do you keep doing this? You're going to get yourself in more trouble than you can handle."

"What?" Lois asked, glaring at him. "The world deserves to know the truth!"

Clark looked away, gazing out the window at the street outside the coffee shop. Lois glared at him before looking out the window too. She didn't see what was so fascinating out there. There were lots of people, a congratulatory LuthorCorp billboard across the street with Superman's symbol on it and…

She paused, paying attention to the way people looked up at the advertisement. She thought it was really tacky for Lex to be capitalizing on Superman's preference for Metropolis by putting up billboards that celebrated him and thanked him for protecting them, but it struck her how every single person passing on the street looked up at the billboard and smiled. It was like simply _seeing_ the symbol made them feel better about being in Metropolis.

"So he's a hero, so what?" Lois grumbled, adding more sugar to her coffee. "If he's the vampire then people deserve to know."

"He's kind of given everyone hope, Lois," Clark said gently. "No one knows where he's from or how he got his powers. If he were the vampire I'd say that he's doing things to make the world a better place, not a worse one. Why hunt him down and destroy him?"

"I hate it when you argue that way!" Lois hissed at him, refusing to respond to the amusement that lit up Clark's eyes. "You cheat."

"I just try and rein you in sometimes," Clark said, taking a little sip of his coffee and making a face.

"Why do you get coffee when you never drink it?" Lois asked before she could stop herself.

"Oh. It um… reminds me of Chloe and my mom," Clark admitted in a sad little voice that hurt to hear. He looked down into his mug, carefully rotating it in slow quarter turns with his fingertips.

"Oh," Lois said softly, sipping her coffee.

They finished their drinks in silence and then went back to the din and bustle of the newsroom. Lois thought about what Clark had said for the rest of the day. Clark was in and out in his never-ending search for records and leads. Lois worked the phones, occasionally bellowing for Clark. He usually showed up pretty quickly after she bellowed. It wasn't a perfect working partnership but they seemed to do okay together.

"Kent! Lane!" Perry bellowed just before quitting time. "In my office!"

Lois looked at Clark. He blinked at her and shrugged that he didn't know what was on Perry's mind either. She sighed and saved her open files. They headed into Perry's office to find out what had his panties in a wad. Perry was pacing in front of the window. He stopped once they came in, gazing out the window at the billboard with Superman's logo on it. Clark fidgeted nervously. Lois elbowed him to get him to stand still.

"What's up, Chief?" Lois asked.

"Stop calling me Chief," Perry growled, turning to glare at her. There wasn't any real bite in the growl so she ignored it. "I have a new assignment for the two of you. I want you to get an interview with Superman."

"Um, that's not going to be easy," Clark said hesitantly. "He doesn't exactly stick around after he saves someone."

"I know, I know," Perry said, waving away Clark's objection. "I'm absolutely convinced that Lex Luthor knows Superman somehow. Kent, I don't like using your relationship with him but see if you can convince him to ask Superman for an interview."

Clark made a strangled squeaking noise that made Lois elbow him again. His hand had already flown to his mouth as he blushed violently.

"Oh please, Smallville," Lois groaned, rolling her eyes. "We're all adults here. We know what you do with Lex. Stop being such a hayseed."

"Lois!" Clark squawked, his ears going as red as his cheeks.

"She's right, son," Perry said, chuckling. "Don't worry about it. No one here has any issues with your relationship. The worst Lex can say is no. If he mentions it to Superman then I'll count that as a win. It'll put a bug in his ear. Lane, I want you to work on catching Superman's attention somehow. As of this moment you're on the Superman beat. Find out everything that you can about our resident superhero. I want to know where he's from, what he eats, what he drinks. Where does he sleep? _Does_ he sleep? You did a good job on that Batman article so do the same thing on Superman. Get me a scoop, Lane!"

"Sure Chief, I'll pull something out of my ass," Lois huffed, glaring at him. "What about my vampire story?"

"Will you let that damned thing go?" Perry shouted, waving a fist in the air in their general direction. Clark backed up a step. Lois didn't budge. He wasn't that mad. He hadn't turned purple yet. "It's ancient history, Lane. Get with the times. Superman, not vampires, got it?"

"I've got it, I've got it," Lois sighed, rolling her eyes. "But someday you'll see that I'm right, Chief!"

"Lane!" Perry bellowed and this time Lois scooted out of his office because the anger was real enough that he was turning blotchy purple instead of bright red.

It turned out to be a lot easier to say that she was going to snag the first interview with Superman than it was to do it. Clark did his best to persuade Lex to push Superman into an interview, in Lois's hearing on a couple of occasions, but there was no luck there. Lois switched duties with Clark to give her more time out in the field. She went to every single disaster and emergency she could find. She interviewed witnesses and survivors. She talked to cops and firefighters. She all but made up emergencies in an effort to catch Superman in the act.

Between the two of them they found records on Superman, and his probable previous identity the Blur, going back years. There was no record of him before the whole vampire mess, which fueled Lois' certainty that he was the master vampire who'd gotten away. She kept up her efforts to catch Superman at the scene, chasing him all over Metropolis.

"This is going to kill me," Lois groaned after a solid month of failure. She flopped at her desk, kicking off her shoes. She wiggled her toes and sighed with relief.

"Maybe he just doesn't want to give out an interview, Lois," Clark offered, logging off of his computer.

"Hot date?" Lois asked, grinning tiredly at the way Clark blushed and ducked his head.

"You only say things like that to make me blush," Clark mumbled, not meeting her eyes.

"If you stop reacting, I'll stop teasing," Lois laughed, rubbing her forehead. "God, I'm exhausted. I'm going to go smoke and don't you dare tell me it's bad for me. I've spent all day running my feet off. I _deserve_ a cigarette."

"Be careful up there," Clark said, shaking his head as she pulled out her cigarettes. "It's really windy today."

"You're my partner, not my mother," Lois snapped at him. "Quit worrying about me and go on your date, Smallville."

She slipped her shoes back on and went up on the roof of the Planet. It was seriously windy up there, with gusts of wind that blew out her lighter every time she tried to light up. Lois growled and tried a half dozen different spots. Eventually she gave up and went to the railing to look at the Luthor Tower across the street. She sighed. Clark was in there, happy with Lex. She couldn't begrudge him his happiness but sometimes she did feel like she was missing something important by focusing exclusively on her career.

"I heard through some fairly reliable sources that you wanted to speak to me, Ms. Lane," a man's voice said from above her.

"What?" Lois squawked and whirled, staring up at Superman.

He smiled tightly, landing a few yards away from her. He was a little taller than Clark, with dark hair and deep blue eyes. His suit left practically nothing to the imagination. It was bright red and blue with the famous 'S' on the chest in gold. He smiled warily at her, looking at her as if he expected her to dart over and grab him.

"You heard!" Lois said, waving her pack of cigarettes around excitedly. "Yes! Yes, I do want to talk to you. So many questions. Where are you from? How did you get here? What powers do you have? Where were you during the vampire crisis in Metropolis a few years ago?"

She threw the last one in even though she was sure that he wouldn't answer it. He smiled until the last question and then winced, looking away.

"Krypton, some time ago," Superman said, his eyes more sad than anyone she'd ever seen, "more than people realize, and here, in Metropolis."

"What?" Lois asked, staring at him. Her mind skipped over the other answers to latch onto the last one.

"I was here in Metropolis during the vampire 'event'," Superman said, shuddering. He pulled down the neck on his suit, exposing a pair of fang marks on his neck. They looked deep, as though he'd been bitten again and again in the same spot, leaving permanent scars.

"Oh my God," Lois breathed, staring at him in shock. "You are the Master Vampire!"

"No, actually I'm not," Superman said with his trademark little smile. He pulled the neck of his suit up again. "I was the source of Ms. Lang's greater powers but I was not the source of the infection."

Lois stared at him, her mouth dropped open. Superman sighed sadly, looking into the distance with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked distant, unapproachable. There was something truly alien about him, as if he was completely separate from human concerns. She wondered for a wild moment if he ate or slept. She would have believed it if he said that he didn't.

"I do have weaknesses, Ms. Lane," Superman said quietly without meeting her eyes. "Ms. Lang managed to capitalize on one of them. She kept me prisoner in her sorority as her personal blood bank. If Lex Luthor hadn't arrived when he did I suspect that I would be dead. I know that she was killing me. Had it gone on much longer we wouldn't be having this conversation. He saved me when he saved the rest of Metropolis and the world."

"Wow," Lois whispered, shivering violently as the wind picked up, making Superman's cape snap behind him.

"Perhaps we can do this interview somewhere warmer, Ms. Lane?" Superman suggested with a wry little smile. "I'm not affected by the cold but you are."

"Sure!" Lois said, starting into motion. "My place is really close to here. Let's go there."

"Do you have a balcony?" Superman asked, cocking his head at her.

"Yeah," Lois said, nodding.

"Then I'll follow you from the air," Superman said with a little grin that was shocking perhaps because of its briefness. His teeth looked perfectly normal, no fangs at all. "I'll see you in a few minutes, Ms. Lane."

He took flight, disappearing into the night. Lois stared after him, her heart beating so hard she thought it would come straight through her chest. Lois hurried downstairs, grabbed her purse and rushed home. She drove like a madwoman and ran up the stairs to get to her apartment, determined to get there before his patience ran out. He was waiting on the balcony with an amused expression when she ran in. She opened the balcony door, panting like a bellows.

"You didn't have to hurry that much," Superman said as she let him in. "I would have waited."

"No, no," Lois said, wincing as he looked at the discarded take out containers scattered around her kitchen and living room. "That's all right. I was ready to go home anyway. Um, let me just pick some of this up and we can sit down."

"Here," Superman said. There was a whoosh of air. Suddenly her apartment was cleaner than it had been since she'd moved in. Three bags of trash appeared by the door for her to take out.

"You are really fast," Lois said, staring around her in awe. "Thank you! Wow, this is amazing."

"You're welcome, Ms. Lane," Superman said politely. "What questions did you have for me?"

"Questions," Lois said, blinking at him and then starting. "Questions! Oh yeah, I got questions. Lemme grab a notebook and we'll get started."

She settled on the couch and gestured for Superman to take the chair opposite her. He stood behind it, keeping the chair between him and her. She noted that mentally but let it go. If he wanted to stand there wasn't a heck of a lot that she could do about it.

"First question," Lois said, smiling brightly at him and getting a tiny but highly amused smile from him, "where are you from?"

"I'm from the planet Krypton," Superman said calmly. "It was in another galaxy but it was destroyed when I was young."

"Whoa, really?" Lois asked, noting that down with her best approximation of how to spell 'Krypton'. She'd have Clark check the spelling tomorrow. "How'd that happen?"

"It's a long story," Superman said, cocking his head at her.

"I've got all the time you can give me, Superman," Lois declared.

He nodded, finally coming around the chair to sit as if he was unfamiliar with lounge chairs. Or maybe it was the cape. Lois wasn't sure. Either way he sat awkwardly and started talking. Once he started talking she didn't care anymore, too fascinated by what he was telling her. He told her about his home world, his scientist father, coming to Earth to live when the rest of his race had been destroyed. He hesitated at one point in describing his early days, moving instead into his work as a superhero.

"So what did you do when you first got to Earth?" Lois asked once he'd stopped talking. "You must have had an adjustment period before you became the Blur."

He winced so badly that Lois wished she hadn't asked the question. When his hand rose to rub the fang marks on his throat Lois realized she must have just hit one of his worst memories. Superman sighed and looked out the balcony window, staring at the darkness outside.

"For a time I tried to live as a human," Superman admitted. "I look enough like your people that it was possible, despite my lack of understanding of most human emotions and behavioral patterns. It was during the time that my powers were developing. On my homeworld Kryptonians had no powers. We were just like humans are here. Its only under your sun that we gain powers. That was one of my father's main reasons for sending me to this world to live."

"So you were… pretty much normal at that time?" Lois asked, noting that down with a star that would remind her that she should probably leave that out of the article. She wasn't going to endanger him if she could help it.

"Mostly," Superman said, shrugging slightly. "I had greater strength and speed, plus my heat vision but I couldn't fly and my invulnerability wasn't fully established."

"That's how she was able to bite you," Lois said, tapping her notebook with her pen.

"Yes," Superman said, looking rather ill.

He also had that desperately uncomfortable in his skin look that Clark got whenever someone besides Lex commented on his appearance. Lois' stomach lurched. She carefully put the notebook and pen down, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly before looking into Superman's somewhat confused blue eyes.

"This isn't on the record," Lois said gravely, "and it'll never get into any article that I write. You have my word on that. Did Lana Lang rape you?"

Superman flinched so badly at the question that Lois knew the answer was yes before he said anything. Superman got up, moving to the opposite end of her little apartment to pace. Eventually he turned back to her and nodded, his face so carefully blank that she was certain his heart was raging.

"That's why you don't stick around," Lois said, anger rising in her heart and her voice. "That's why you're open about who you are. That's why you don't try and live as a human anymore. She scarred you badly enough that you withdrew from us on a personal level."

"Pretty much," Superman said, sighing. He came back to the chair, resting a hand on the back of it. "She was… not a good introduction to the human race, I'm afraid. I've met so many humans since her who are truly wonderful people but Lana…"

He stopped and shook his head sadly. His expression was strange mixture of revulsion and pity, as though he'd seen something disgusting that someone else had to clean up. Lois nodded slowly. She'd have to see if she could secure an interview with Lana in prison. She claimed not to remember anything but that didn't mean that she was telling the truth. It might be very interesting to see what Lana had to say about this.

"Okay," Lois said, picking up her notebook and pen again, "I'll just say that you were there and caught by her until Lex freed you. I won't put anything in about her doing _that_ to you."

"Thank you," Superman said, an intensely grateful look passing over his face before it went back to the smiling impassive expression that he'd had before.

They kept talking for another two hours, until Superman heard an emergency out by the docks. He left, taking off from her balcony like a leaf picked up by a strong wind. Lois watched him go, staring into the darkness long after he disappeared. Once she headed back inside she set to work on the first draft of her article. The Lana angle was going to have to wait. She had more than she could put into one article as it was.

"Keripten?" Clark asked with a puzzled expression when he proofed her article the next morning.

"No, Krypton," Lois said, emphasizing the word's pronunciation. "What? You wouldn't spell it that way?"

"Um, no," Clark said, laughter dancing in his eyes as he marked out her spelling and put his own. "Not unless you want people to think of Kermit the Frog when they first see the word."

"Oh just fix it, Clark!" Lois huffed. She refused to admit that she'd blushed at his description of her spelling of the word.

"Okay," Clark said, drawing the world out so much that it became a laugh by default.

Lois threw her pen at him, getting a real laugh from Clark. Perry all but kissed her when she turned in her Superman article. She nearly put him through the wall when she found out the title he'd slapped on it. 'I Spent The Night With Superman' harkened back to her days at the Inquisitor and that was the last thing that Lois wanted. She was trying to live up to Chloe's dreams, not live down to her past. She had to accept the title though, especially once she won another Pulitzer for the article.

She kept working on the vampire story in her spare time but once the Superman article hit the presses she seemed to have a lot less time than she used to. There were more stories, better ones. Perry gave her special assignments. Clark passed ideas her way. She found stories of her own, good ones, ones that made a difference in the world. It felt… good.

"You're sighing a lot today," Clark commented as he smelled his coffee instead of drinking it, just like normal.

"Just thinking," Lois said, sipping her coffee as she looked out the window. The billboard had a different ad on it now, one for some new perfume from Queen Industries.

"What?" Clark asked, giving her that wary look that said he was worried she was about to dash off and do something stupid.

"Chloe," Lois said, shrugging. She didn't meet his eyes. "Me. My career. I was doing this for her, you know."

"No, I didn't know that," Clark said, surprised enough that she turned and looked at him. He was frowning at her with concern.

"I was," Lois said, making a face. "She didn't get a chance to reach her dream. She got right to the door of the Planet but she never got in. So after everything settled down in town I decided that I'd do it for her. She's why I finished school. She's why I majored in Journalism. She's why I worked so hard to get into the Daily Planet. She's behind every story that I write. Just not so much recently."

Lois set her coffee down, staring into the way Clark normally did. Heck, lately she even drank her coffee the way Chloe had liked it. Of course, extra caffeine was a good thing with the hours she'd been pulling but when had Lois _become_ her cousin? She wasn't sure if it was a bad thing or a good thing or if she was just imagining it all. She certainly wasn't living up to the promise she'd made on Chloe's grave to bring the master vampire to justice. Clark's hand settled on top of Lois', nearly startling her out of her skin. He hardly ever touched her, especially not flesh to flesh.

"Lois, is it a bad thing that your stories are changing?" Clark asked, using his 'interviewing a terrified witness who might bolt at any second' voice.

"Of course it's bad!" Lois huffed, glaring at him despite the way his soothing tone of voice calmed her.

"Why?" Clark asked, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.

Lois stared at him, her mouth working as she tried to find words that made sense. 'Because' wasn't an adequate answer, even to her. After a second she had to shut her eyes against a wave of tears that came from nowhere. It was the tears that made it click into place.

"It feels like I'm leaving her behind," Lois said, her eyes still shut against Clark's face and those damned tears trying to well up. "It feels like she's being forgotten, Clark. I don't want to forget her. I don't want to leave her there, in the grave. She deserved so much more than she got. I should keep telling her stories, not go find my own stories."

"Lois," Clark said, still in that damned gentle voice, "there were a lot of stories that Chloe chose not to tell. She started out telling one sort of story, the meteor freak stories, and then she moved on. She wouldn't be happy that you're holding yourself back. She'd probably yell at you for it. She always said that a reporter has to tell the stories that make a difference. She'd want you to tell the stories that improve the world. I think you're doing really well at that now, better than you were when you were stuck on the vampire thing."

Lois nodded, not trusting her voice. Clark held her hand until she opened her eyes and smiled at him. They spent a little longer than normal at the coffee shop, returning to work as if Lois hadn't been right on the edge of breaking down and crying in public for the first time since Chloe's funeral. Clark didn't mention it. Neither did Lois.

It was another obnoxiously long day with entirely too much terrible coffee and running around. Clark stayed late with her, working on his stories. Eventually he left and Lois looked around at the sudden silence. She was the last person there other than the janitor emptying garbage cans.

"Oh forget it," Lois groaned. "I'm going home."

She stumbled out of the elevator and into the parking garage a few minutes later. Her keys were somewhere in her purse but she couldn't see straight to dig them out. Yeah, she should have gone home much sooner. Three or four hours of sleep a night for weeks on end just wasn't hacking it. Lois looked around for her car, biting back a curse when she realized that she'd gone the wrong direction. She'd parked on the other side of the parking garage.

"Clark…" A man's voice echoed through the garage, making Lois start and come awake again.

Lois recognized the voice. No one but Lex would say Clark's name that way. She headed in the direction of the voice instead of towards her car, frowning that they'd be here still. She would have thought that Clark would be home already but maybe he and Lex had decided to go out or something. They were standing pressed against one of the support pillars. Lex's back was up against the concrete and Clark was pinning him. That surprised her. She'd always assumed that Lex was the top in their relationship.

"We shouldn't," Clark murmured, his voice just barely audible to Lois under the hum of the overhead lights.

"There's no one here, Clark," Lex said, his hands pushing Clark's jacket out of the way. He pulled Clark closer, pressing their groins together. "I don't want to wait until after dinner. I want it now."

"Lex," Clark moaned, leaning in to kiss Lex like he was dying and they'd never get to touch again.

Lex kissed him back, flinching after a moment and then shuddering. Clark groaned, sucking hard on Lex's mouth. They parted slowly, still tongue kissing. Lois' heart stopped as she saw blood on both of their lips. Lex's tongue was bleeding.

"You taste so good," Clark moaned, pulling at Lex's necktie and opening his collar to expose his neck.

"Yes," Lex groaned, his hips thrusting against Clark's. "Oh God yes, do it Clark!"

Clark shuddered, pulling back for a second to stare into Lex's eyes. They shared a look that had more love and lust in it than Lois would have thought was possible, especially from Clark. Then Clark bent and bit Lex's neck. Lex gasped, his eyes shutting in obvious ecstasy. Lois bit her lip to keep from breathing, from screaming, from crying, from doing something idiotic like grabbing a tire iron and beating Clark to death.

When Clark released Lex's neck Lois could see twin puncture wounds on Lex's neck. His blood dribbled for a second before the wounds closed up, healing to nothing but tiny pink marks in a matter of seconds. Clark licked the last trickle of blood away, gently caressing Lex's cheek. Lex smiled at him, leaning into the touch. They got into their car, Clark driving, and left. Lois hid behind a pillar until long after they'd left the garage.

She wasn't sure how she'd gotten home. She knew she had to have gone back to her car and driven herself back to her apartment but Lois had no clue how she'd done it. She could have passed a dozen accidents and she wouldn't have known it. She found herself standing in front of her fridge, staring at the take out boxes inside about an hour after Clark and Lex left.

"Now what?" Lois whispered, shutting the fridge door.

She looked blindly around her apartment, stumbling over to her couch. Lois collapsed on it, staring across the room at the wall of family photos she'd put up after she'd moved in. Most of them were dusty, all except for Chloe's graduation photo. Lois touched it every morning before she went to work, just to say good morning to her cousin. Chloe smiled out of the photo, beaming at the world with so much hope and delight.

"What would you do?" Lois whispered, staring at Chloe as if she'd answer.

After a moment it felt like Chloe had answered. Lois sighed, slumping back on the couch with her hands over here eyes. Chloe had loved Clark. She'd dated him, pined after him, and eventually let him go. She'd protected him her entire life. Lois nodded slowly, staring at the ceiling. Chloe must have known that Clark was a vampire. She'd protected him so carefully the entire time that Lois had known him. Lois frowned, wondering about that. Maybe he'd just become a vampire when Lois first met him. Dumped naked in a cornfield with no memory made sense when she looked at it that way. But it really didn't matter.

"He's never hurt anyone," Lois whispered, sliding sideways to lie on the couch. "All these years and there's never been another incident. There weren't any incidents until Lana was infected."

Lois frowned after a second, tapping on the cushion with one finger. How could he be feeding on Lex without infecting him? She got up and went to her huge expanding file folder of notes, digging through them until she found the interview she'd done with Lex right after it happened. She nodded, smiling triumphantly.

"So Lex is immune," Lois murmured, sitting on the floor in the middle of her papers. "Clark infects Lana, realizes she's gone nuts and runs for his life. Lana catches Superman and gets her super special powers from him. Lex stays in town and finds the cure. He sneaks into Lana's house and frees Superman. Superman helps him stop Lana and together they cure the vampires. But Clark's on the run until Lex finds him. Unfortunately since he's the source of the infection he can't be cured. Lex keeps trying and eventually they fall in love and there you go. End of the story."

Lois nodded slowly, looking at the piles of data spread around her. She finally had the whole story, the one she'd been hunting for since Chloe died. There was no way that she could tell it to anyone. There was no way that Chloe would approve of her destroying Clark's life, even if Lois were willing to do it. It'd be like kicking a puppy only worse. She was sure that Clark had been some sort of whore while he was on the run. He'd put himself through hell for what he'd done to Lana. There couldn't be a punishment worse than the things she knew he'd done to himself. All his little quirks and comments over the years added up in her head, making her nod sadly. Clark had already punished himself worse than the law ever could. It wasn't his fault that Lana had taken what he'd given her and turned it into a monstrosity.

Lois smiled and gathered all her vampire files up. The working stack made a nice bonfire in her fireplace. The backup files from her bedroom kept it going for a good long while. The CD's of data melted nicely in the blaze. She wiped everything that she had on her hard drive before starting the defrag function on her computer. It was the best she could do without calling in IT guys to get rid of the data. Lois called in for the next day, snorting when she realized that she only had about two hours before she was supposed to go to work. She went to bed instead. Before she turned off the light she turned off her alarm clock and cell phone. She was getting a good night's sleep finally.

"Hey cousin," Lois said the next afternoon, putting fresh flowers on Chloe's grave. "Been a while since I got out to see you. I got busy but that doesn't mean that I forgot you."

She brushed some leaves off of Chloe's gravestone. It was warm from the sunshine beating down. Lois traced the letters of Chloe's name, smiling softly. She stood up, looking around the graveyard.

"You're not really here are you?" Lois murmured, looking at the stone. "Sure, sure, I saw your body lowered into this grave but _you're_ not here. You're out here with me, watching me fulfill your dreams."

Lois pushed down a wave of stupid tears, smiling brightly as Chloe's name went blurry. Her chest felt tight. Lois breathed slowly, letting herself feel the pain. There was a lot of loss but there was also a lot of joy. She was living Chloe's dream for her. Better yet, it had become Lois' dream too.

"You keep watching, coz," Lois declared, stuffing her hands in her pockets. "You haven't seen anything yet. And don't worry. I'll watch over Clark just the same way you used to. You can trust me. He'll be fine between Lex and me."

Lois sniffed and wiped her cheeks dry. She walked away from Chloe's grave with a bounce in her step. She felt better than she had in years. Time to go buy some food, clean her pit of an apartment and do some laundry. Tomorrow she had stories to write. Today was for her.


	3. Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Superman's exposed to red sunlight. It does much more than just take his powers away but Batman's there to make sure that no one is hurt.

"Call Lex."

Bruce barred Diana's path with one arm that she could have easily broken or shoved out of the way. She stopped, looking at Bruce with a frown that spoke of confusion rather than anger. Clark whimpered in the corner of the locker room, curled around his knees as he shook violently.

"He needs—"

"He needs Lex Luthor," Bruce snapped at her. "The longer he goes without Lex the worse this will be."

Diana's eyes went wide at the anger in his voice but it was Bart who sped off to call Lex. Bruce banished the others from the locker room, standing guard over Clark. His armor was probably strong enough to keep him from being bitten if Clark's… needs overcame his will power. It wouldn't have sufficed before Clark's powers were impacted but now it should suffice.

"You should leave," Clark whispered.

"No."

"Please go away. Please," Clark begged. "I can hear your heartbeat, Bruce. Please. Go away."

"No."

Clark whimpered. His head came up and instead of the familiar blue-green eyes of Superman, a vampire's red eyes looked back at him. Clark's teeth had grown so long that they overhung his lips. Bruce didn't move. Neither did Clark.

"I can't," Clark panted.

"You won't," Bruce said. "Lex is on his way."

"Fuck."

The obscenity was more shocking than the way Clark looked. None of the others knew that Clark was a vampire. Not yet. Bruce knew that there would have to be a long discussion about it after Clark had been taken care of but for now he did what he could for his friend. He stood guard, trusting Clark's innate goodness to keep him safe against the hunger that wracked his body.

"Please go."

"No."

"Why?" Clark snapped.

"I trust you."

"You are insane," Clark groaned. He put a hand over his mouth, trying to hide the fangs and drool.

"No. I know you." Bruce allowed a smile to quirk his lips at the dirty look that Clark threw at him. "You won't do it."

Whatever Clark mumbled behind his hand was probably quite obscene. Bruce paid it no mind. He could hear footsteps running up the hallway: human speed, with panting, so it had to be Lex. Bruce stepped aside and let Lex enter. Diana and the others were outside of the door. Her expression was so grim that Bruce knew she had to have figured it out. The others looked worried and confused.

"Clark!" Lex gasped. "What the hell happened?"

"He was hit by red sunlight, which cancelled his powers," Bruce said. He shut the door on the others, giving Clark and Lex as much privacy as he could. "At the same time he was hit with kryptonite, which spiked the hunger to nearly uncontrollable levels."

"Oh hell," Lex breathed. His eyes went wide with horror. "Clark?"

"Can't," Clark panted. His hand was still firmly clamped over his mouth. "Get him out. Can't."

Bruce calmly walked to the sink and got Lex a pitcher of water. Lex raised an eyebrow and then shook his head as if it didn't matter that Bruce obviously knew. He drank the water in a long series of gulps and then pulled off his coat and tie so that he could settle down next to Clark.

"I'm here," Lex whispered to Clark. "It's okay."

"He's…"

"Guarding the door," Bruce said as he took up his station again. "Do what you need to. I'll guard you both until you've recovered."

Clark's eyes flared green for a moment before his Vampiric hunger overwhelmed him again. Lex was already working the buttons open on his shirt so that Clark would have free access to his neck. By the time Bruce settled himself in to stand as long as he needed to, Clark had bitten Lex's neck and was feeding.

The sight was anything but erotic to Bruce. It was clearly highly erotic for both Clark and Lex. The first moments of the bite made both of them whimper in need. Bruce nodded very slightly. There wasn't much that he could do to help Clark and Lex, but at least he could ensure that they were safe while they took care of each other. He turned his mind to developing the best explanation for the others so that he wouldn't have to listen to Clark's hungry whimpers and Lex's moans of pleasure as his body was drained of a significant portion of his blood.

"Oh God, Clark…" Lex breathed as he went limp in Clark's arms.

"Rest," Bruce ordered when Clark tried to get up with Lex in his arms. "I'm still watching. It's okay. Take care of each other. I'll take care of the others."

"Thank you."

Bruce nodded at Clark's quiet words. He waited until Clark had wrapped Lex in his bright cape to wait for his return to consciousness. Rather than intrude, Bruce slipped outside to deal with the rest of the team. There truly wasn't much he could do but he would do what he could to help. If that meant being a shield until they were better, so be it.


	4. Mastering The Vampire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Clark was exposed to a combination of red sunlight and green kryptonite, it robbed him not only of his powers but also of the ability to hide his vampirism from the rest of the League. After hiding what he was for so long, Clark decides to tell them how he came to be who and what he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Patrese1 for her winning Help_Japan Bid.

The atmosphere outside of the locker room felt different when Clark stepped through the door, hand in hand with Lex. It was colder somehow, more suspicious. He could smell fear and revulsion in the air along with the familiar scents of the other members of the Justice League. Bruce's scent was the same as always, the same as it had been since they'd first met so many years ago. His fear of vampires was such a constant that it was barely noticeable anymore.

"What?" Lex asked.

"They know," Clark sighed. "Bruce told them."

"Well, it was kind of obvious what was wrong," Lex sighed. "My question is how Bruce knew. I wasn't aware that he knew about it."

"He's… known since before you saved me," Clark admitted. "Since before I was the Blur, before he was Batman. He's known practically forever."

"What?"

Lex's shock made Clark blush and duck his head because he couldn't, wouldn't, grin. His fangs were still oscillating in response to his powers being gone and the exposure to green kryptonite. The powers probably be back after Clark got some sunshine but for now he was just the vampire, not Superman at all. It felt very strange after all these years.

"When? How?" Lex asked.

"During his travels," Clark said as Bruce appeared at the end of the hallway, his lips curled in a little smile at them both. "And during my hiding years."

"The others…" Bruce's voice trailed off into a frustrated sigh.

"Think I'm a monster," Clark completed for him. "We should explain."

"They know the story, Clark," Bruce said. "I told them how this happened to you."

"No, I don't think they do know the whole story," Clark said thoughtfully. "How could they? I've never told the whole thing. You don't know it. Lex doesn't know. It's… there's so much more than what either of you are aware of. I think… I think it's time I talked about it. I've got a couple hours before I can handle direct sunshine so why not?"

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Lex asked, tugging at Clark's hand to make him look at Lex. He looked worried about Clark, which was no surprise given everything that had happened today.

Clark nodded. Neither Bruce nor Lex looked as though they thought it was a good idea but Clark was tired, tired of hiding, tired of lying. It was hard dealing with everyone without their knowing what he was. He always had Lex on his side, and Bruce in his discreet way, but the League were his friends and his allies. Lying to them about something so basic was hard.

"I'm sure."

They headed into the conference room and everyone stared at Clark as if he was a monster. That wasn't a surprise. Clark had smelled their fear and disgust long before the door opened. Diana was the only one who had a reasonably open expression on her face, though he could smell how on edge she was. With his other powers gone for the moment, Clark had to rely on his vampire's sense of smell. Normally he barely noticed such things as he relied on his Kryptonian powers and ignored his vampiric ones.

"Bruce has explained something of what happened," Diana said when the others only stared and fidgeted.

"He doesn't know everything," Clark said. He let Lex pull him into one of the seats, clinging to Lex's hand. "No one does yet."

"You're really a vampire?" Wally asked as he squirmed in his seat.

"Yeah," Clark said. His normal tight little smile made Wally wince and J'onn frown. "Sorry. I'm really tired. My powers won't come back for a couple of hours yet. I was infected by Lana back in college. She kept me as her personal blood bank so that she could be Queen of the Vampires. Lex figured out a cure and came to stop Lana."

"Unfortunately," Lex said when Clark paused to gather his thoughts, "Clark's metabolism had already adjusted to the change. I'm immune and I regenerate, so I was able to give him the strength to fight her by allowing him to feed on me. Together we defeated Lana and the other vampires, cured them, but there was no way to cure Clark."

"You tried?" J'onn asked so gravely that Clark smiled sadly at him.

"So many times," Clark sighed. "So many times. That's actually how Bruce found out, not that he knew who I was or I knew who he was. He… saved me, saved me from myself and gave me the strength to become a hero, the Blur. Then Lex saved me from the shadows and helped me become Superman."

None of them seemed to know what to make of that. Even Bruce looked puzzled. Lex's grip on Clark's hand was just the wrong side of painful with Clark's invulnerability lowered. He hadn't been this weak since the last time Lana fed on him and that was a memory he truly didn't want to wallow in.

It was hard to remember that time, back before he'd been saved, but Clark knew that he needed to explain it all. As often as Lex had recommended a therapist, Clark had always refused. He didn't think he could trust a therapist to keep his secrets, all of his many secrets, but he did trust these people. Clark didn't know if they'd ever be able to set the very logical and sane fear of vampires aside, but he hoped by explaining what had happened that they'd be able to work with him in the future. He really didn't want to give up being Superman, though he would if he had to.

He really hoped he wouldn't have to.

"It all started with Lana," Clark started to explain, his voice quiet enough that the others leaned forward to listen. "She didn't just feed on me, you know. She did worse, so much worse, sexual things. And those things were what drove me away from Lex at first, not the fear of killing him by feeding on him."

+++++

Clark bit back a scream as he bolted awake, flailing an arm against the Lana in his dreams. Battered blankets covered with patches caught on his arm, exposing his body to the cold air around him. Despite being naked and exposed to the air, he could still feel the filthy bedding, the heavy velvet hangings that Lana had used to hem him in and keep him imprisoned away from the sun for so long. What his eyes saw was snow and a low shelter made of branches and sticks, though his mind still tried to interpret the tiny shelter as velvet for far too long.

"Easy," a man's voice said far too close to Clark. "You're safe."

"Who?" Clark gasped as he twisted around to stare at the stranger. He clutched the blanket to his waist automatically as the awareness of his complete nakedness finally sank in.

The stranger smiled a tiny smile that really was anything other than an expression of amusement while offering Clark a tin mug with steaming water in it. His ratty clothes were dark, dirty and threadbare and he had dark armor of some sort over the top of them. The brown hair looked as though he'd been weeks or longer without washing, or as if he'd been caught in a fire as there were smudges on his cheeks. His bright blue eyes were so sharp and intelligent that Clark backed away.

"Easy," the man repeated. "It's just water."

"I don't want it," Clark said, pressing back against the fragile wood posts holding the shelter up. "I'm fine. Who are you? What do you want?"

"Nobody and nothing," the man replied. "I found you collapsed in a snowdrift and built this shelter. Thought you'd appreciate not being dead."

From the expression on his face he wasn't sure if he'd made the right choice. Clark winced and wrapped the blanket around his legs so that he wasn't exposed to those bright eyes. The cold of the night didn't bother him, nor did the snow surrounding them. He didn't recognize the windswept desolation around them. It wasn't the pure snow and ice of the arctic as there were mountains hemming them in and trees behind them, but it wasn't a place that Clark had ever been.

"Where are we?" Clark asked a great deal more politely this time.

He couldn't quite remember what had happened. In the months since Lex had stopped Lana and saved the world, Clark had repeatedly asked Jor-El to purge the vampire virus from his system. Most of the time nothing at all happened. Sometimes there was pain from the attempts. The last few times had been so horrific that Clark had been driven half mad by the blood thirst and pain.

After this last attempt, which Clark finally noticed had left him mottled by bruises that made it hard to move or breathe, he'd flown out of the Fortress and into the sky as if flying into the sun would make it all go away. It hadn't. He'd gone out into orbit, screaming the last of his air away, and then plummeted back to earth like a comet. The last thing that Clark remembered was wishing that the impact would finally end his life. Apparently he hadn't gotten his wish.

"Not that far from Mt Chagdo Kongri, in its southern foothills," the man replied calmly. He raised an eyebrow at Clark's blank look. "It's roughly halfway between Mani and Memar Lake."

"Um, country?" Clark asked hesitantly.

"…Tibet."

Clark's cheeks burned at the look the other man gave him; as if he was trying to assess exactly what Clark had been on to get so lost that he didn't know what part of the world he was in. The silence stretched for so long that it took on a life of its own. There wasn't anything that Clark could say to the curiosity and suspicion in the other man's eyes and the other man seemed perfectly willing to let Clark be silent for as long as he wanted. All he did was set the mug of rapidly cooling water within Clark's reach.

"Kent," Clark said finally.

"Hmm?"

"Kent," Clark repeated. "You can call me Kent."

"Then you can call me Gotham," the man said, amusement in his eyes though it didn't translate to his lips.

"...Seriously?" Clark asked and then had to duck his head against a grin at Gotham's faint blush.

"It's where I'm from," Gotham said with a not-casual shrug that held as much tension as Clark's shoulders did. "Where I was from, anyway. I haven't been back in… years."

"Oh."

Clark picked up the mug and sort of played with it without drinking from it. Gotham watched him and eventually offered Clark a tiny bag of tea that Clark shook his head at. Once his heart stopped pounding from the remnants of his dream and the shock of finding himself so far from home, Clark became intensely aware of the pound and swish of Gotham's blood in his veins.

"I have some spare clothes," Gotham offered when Clark started shaking.

"No, I'm fine," Clark said a little desperately.

"You can't walk around naked," Gotham huffed. "It's too cold and the farmers will object."

He pulled out a pair of patched pants and a black shirt that looked as though it was nearly transparent it was so worn. Rather than passing them to Clark, he tossed them over. Clark pulled them on though the fabric did nothing to help him deal with the hunger that was rising inside of him. Gotham watched with a little frown that deepened as Clark curled into a ball.

"Who was she?" Gotham asked.

"What?" Clark asked, startled enough to look up and meet Gotham's eyes.

"Red," Gotham breathed, awe in his expression. "Your eyes…"

"Oh God," Clark gasped as he slapped his hand over his mouth to hide the fangs. "I'm sorry."

Gotham stood and walked away, his back so stiff that he was obviously freaking out. The further away he went the more Clark relaxed. By the time Gotham was a half dozen yards away Clark almost felt like himself again, even though he was still desperately hungry. Eventually Gotham turned around and stared at Clark.

"You're a vampire."

"The last, as far as I know," Clark admitted. "I hope I'm the last. I should be the last. I think I'm the last, anyway."

"That's who Lana was," Gotham said thoughtfully. "Lana Lang. You called her name in your sleep."

Just hearing her name made Clark shudder and curl into a ball. Memories of Lana before she became a vampire mixed with the horrors she visited on him afterwards, overwhelming Clark and making him whimper. He didn't hear Gotham come back over to his side but the blanket wrapped around Clark's shoulders, sheltering him in warmth that Clark didn't really need.

Eventually the flashback receded enough that Clark became aware of the world again. Gotham was sitting by his side, just outside of easy reach, stirring a little pot that held watery stew. Clark eased back a little, the hunger slowly rising up again. They sat in silence until Gotham pulled his stew off of the fire and pulled out a spoon.

"I suppose you don't need any," Gotham said entirely too calmly.

"You should be afraid," Clark whispered. "You are afraid. I can tell."

"You're wearing my spare clothes," Gotham said, still in that too calm voice. Fear filled his scent but it didn't seem to affect him. "I trust that you won't ruin my clothes given that they're only on loan to you. It would be very poor thanks for my hospitality."

Clark laughed in spite of himself. It wasn't a very funny joke but it was enough to break the ice between them. Gotham relaxed a tiny bit, though the fear didn't subside at all. As night came on Clark gave the blanket back to Gotham so that he wouldn't freeze. Once Gotham fell asleep Clark added more wood to the fire and then slipped away. It was too dangerous for Clark to stay with him, with the hunger rising so high that Clark could barely control himself.

Gotham's breathing was perfectly calm when Clark looked back at his tiny shelter. He obviously wasn't asleep; Clark could see the gleam of his eyes in the darkness, but he was doing his best to seem as though he was. The snow under Clark's bare feet didn't feel terribly cold, nor did the chilly air. Off to Clark's right the moon rose over the mountains, whichever of the Himalayas he was looking at. It cast light across their little snowy valley and highlighted a group of men in black sneaking towards Gotham's fire.

It took the moonlight glinting off of a knife for Clark to move. As the men moved to attack Gotham, Clark charged back towards the shelter. Gotham seemed to see him because he gasped something garbled only to curse as Clark went straight past him and attacked the other men. They were wearing black clothes and armor like Gotham's though with face masks as though they were ninjas, and were obviously very well trained to fight. Their knives and swords broke on Clark's skin, leaving him unharmed. One went flying a good hundred yards when Clark hit him. The second fell at his feet unmoving after a light slap to the head and the third's pounding heartbeat was a siren call to Clark's hunger, despite the way the man begged for mercy in a language Clark didn't know.

"Kent, don't!" Gotham growled.

He flung an arm around Clark's neck, trying to haul him back and away from the attacking ninja. Clark growled but strangely the fear in Gotham's scent was no greater or lesser now that he'd seen what Clark could do. After a moment, Clark allowed Gotham to pull him backwards, away from the ninja who dropped at Clark's feet and gasped for air.

"Don't." Gotham's voice was quiet and calm despite his continuing fear. "You don't want to do this. That's why you were leaving, right? Because you didn't want to feed on me."

"Yes," Clark admitted in a pained whimper. "Yeah. God, it's so hard! The hunger claws at me and I just… it's so hard."

"Let him go," Gotham said. "Let them all go. Is there anything you can eat besides blood?"

"Not really," Clark admitted as he stepped back, away from the ninja who stared at Clark in terror and from Gotham who gazed at him with perfect, calm acceptance despite his scent full of fear. "There's… a place I can go to get a substitute for blood but... it's a long ways away. I don't need to drink all that much. And… the provider is kind of crazy so I don't trust him."

"No cure?" Gotham asked.

The simple question made Clark shudder. This last attempt was the last attempt. Even Jor-El had admitted that there were no other things that could be done to try and rid Clark of the hunger that now ruled his life. When Clark shook his head no Gotham sighed and put a hand on his shoulder. They watched in silence as the sole conscious ninja ran away into the moonlit night.

Clark helped Gotham pack up his few belongings, refusing to wrap Gotham's blanket around his shoulders. It wasn't as though Clark needed it. They headed south, towards the rough road that Gotham said connected Gerze to Coqen, which then led onwards to the main road that led to Lhasa. After a couple of hours of tromping through the snow, Gotham finally allowed Clark to carry him.

"I don't know what you're hoping to accomplish, Kent," Gotham complained as he wrapped his arms around Clark's neck. "I know you're fast but you still have to walk through the snow."

"Um, not so much," Clark said. "Hold on tight."

Gotham gasped when Clark took to the air. Flying was almost enough to make Clark forget about the hunger, though having Gotham that close to him brought it back to his mind every couple of seconds. His body was so sore and his power levels were so low that flying was a challenge. Adding that to the darkness of the night which made it hard for him to see where they were going meant that he flew low and slow until they found the road that Gotham had spoken of. When they landed on the rutted dirt road, Gotham laughed breathlessly.

"That was incredible," Gotham said, one hand still on Clark's shoulder.

"You're always afraid," Clark commented. "The fear never gets better or worse. Ever since you realized what I am the fear's been steady."

"…Bats terrify me," Gotham said while dropping his hand as if Clark was on fire. "Vampires are the essence of bats for me."

"But it doesn't change," Clark repeated. "I don't understand. How can the fear stay so steady? Doesn't it get to you?"

Gotham laughed quietly as he turned and headed along the road in what Clark assumed was the right direction for Lhasa. Clark followed him, the rocks and mud not bothering his feet at all. They walked in silence for almost an hour before Gotham sighed and shrugged. There were hours to go before the sun rose to burn at Clark's eyes and make it hard for him to handle the vampire side of his soul while the Kryptonian side begged for more sunshine.

"There are ways of learning to control your emotions, Kent," Gotham said. "It takes time and effort but it can be done. You have some control over your hunger. You could probably master it eventually if you tried."

The confused expression on Clark's face made Gotham laugh again. He started explaining in that same calm voice about meditation and focus and finding the center that allows you to push away the needs of your body so that you could do what you need to do. When dawn came Clark flinched but he kept walking next to Gotham until his eyes stopped watering and the sunshine started feeling good.

Gotham's eyes went wide as Clark's bruises faded away under the light of the sun. He'd apparently expected the opposite effect but he didn't ask and Clark didn't offer. Instead Gotham explained several methods of moving meditation, focusing on each move your body made, the feel of your feet as they hit the ground, that might help Clark keep control. Clark tried it and found that it did help with his hunger, though that might be the sun keeping his body minimally nourished instead.

They caught a ride with an ox cart for a while, spent the night in the farmer's barn, and then went on the next morning. Gotham kept talking, explaining things in his calm, patient way when Clark asked questions. That night they slept in the open beside the road. Clark kept watch for most of the night and then woke Gotham about two hours before dawn, much to his annoyance. That morning they meditated together. It helped, to Clark's surprise, as did the marmot that Gotham managed to stun with a flung stone. Clark drank the blood, cringing at showing Gotham what he was, and then Gotham cooked what was left.

After a week of slowly traveling together, sometimes riding on people's carts or trucks, they reached one of the larger towns that had a bus that could take the two of them to Lhasa. Gotham insisted on getting Clark his own clothes and a pair of shoes, despite Clark's insistence that he didn't need them. Clark ended up in a faded red shirt and indigo dyed pants with low boots that felt good against his bare feet.

"Thank you," Clark murmured as Gotham packed his spare clothes away in his bag.

"You're welcome," Gotham replied.

"I should go," Clark said as they headed to the bus station, which was nothing more than a spot where people gathered on the side of the road.

"Too many people?" Gotham asked.

"I…"

The crowd of people waiting for the bus was only a dozen or so but to Clark they felt like an army, an army of walking, talking temptation. Every single one of them pulsed with blood that Clark could hear and nearly taste. It made him start shivering again so Gotham pushed them down a one-block-long side alley that probably qualified as a main road in this tiny Tibet town.

Once he could breathe without shaking from the bloodlust, Clark nodded even though he suspected that Gotham would walk the entire way to Lhasa if that's what Clark wanted. He didn't seem to be in a hurry to get home most of the time but every so often Clark caught him looking into the distance with intense longing filling his eyes. Gotham did have somewhere to be, something he needed to do. Clark was a distraction along the way.

"I need to go back," Clark said finally. "I need, the animal blood isn't enough, Gotham. I need to go back to my father and see if there's anything else we can do. The substitute blood isn't very good but maybe we can make it work well enough that I won't hunger so badly."

"Eventually you're going to have to get used to being around people," Gotham said in his calm, thoughtful way.

"I know," Clark sighed. "It's… hard. The things you've taught me help, a lot, but… I still need to feed and I won't do that. I won't. It's horrible."

Gotham nodded and patted Clark's shoulder as if he was simply a friend instead of a deadly threat that Gotham was consistently terrified of. None of the fear showed in his expression or stance. He looked as though he was sad to see Clark go but unsurprised that Clark would chose to leave.

"Be careful, Kent," Gotham said.

"You too, Gotham," Clark replied. "I think those ninjas are still hunting you."

"Perhaps," Gotham said with such a ferocious expression that Clark blinked at the transformation in his friend. "But they won't succeed. You've given me a good head start and I'll win the battle against them."

Clark took a step backwards as Gotham looked towards the main road. The bus was there, a rattling old machine with chickens in coops on the top and people filling the seats. Some people were perched on top among the luggage. There was no way that Clark would have been able to ride it, not with that much temptation in one place. Gotham smiled and pulled Clark into a surprising hug.

"Take care of yourself, Kent," Gotham murmured before releasing him and heading for the bus with a purposeful stride.

"You too, Gotham," Clark called and smiled as Gotham only waved a hand over his shoulder. "You too."

+++++

"I had no idea you had known each other for so long," Diana mused when Clark paused to catch his breath.

The sun was pouring into the conference room and it made Clark's eyes burn and water. Lex kept rubbing Clark's arm gently, offering what little comfort he could during the telling of his tale and the other's questions. Bruce had sat silently through the entire thing, smiling quietly at Clark as he spoke. It was strangely like being back in Tibet with just the two of them.

"We didn't know who each other were until much later," Bruce said with a casual shrug, "but yes, I knew. I knew before I took up the mask."

"You're really that afraid of him?" Wally asked. He'd started twitching a couple of minutes into Clark's story.

"Yes." Bruce chuckled when Clark answered for him, gesturing for Clark to continue. "I can always smell if someone's afraid of me. Bruce is really weird because the fear's a constant. Everyone else's fear comes and goes depending on what I'm doing, what they're feeling, what sort of distractions there are. I'm not sure why his fear is constant."

"It's a phobia," Bruce explained. "It's one that I've controlled but the fear remains. I find it… inspiring."

"…And people think vampires are scary," Clark commented with a sidelong stare at Bruce that made him grin wickedly.

"So Bruce returned to Gotham and you returned to Metropolis, yes?" J'onn asked.

"No," Clark said. "Bruce did return to Gotham and become Batman but I didn't go to Metropolis, not for another two years. I… I went back to the Fortress and Jor-El, hoping to find something that would cure me or at least let me deal with the hunger."

+++++

"Welcome Kal-El, my son."

The words echoed out of nowhere, filling the cold, sterile Fortress. Clark sighed and landed close to the control panel. Snow had drifted into the Fortress, filling the cracks between the great crystals like dust in the corners of a more normal house. As barren as Clark had thought Tibet was, the Fortress felt far more barren and lifeless. He shivered, more from the thought than from any sensation of cold.

"It didn't work," Clark said as he ran the tip of his finger over one of the control crystals. "I'm still a vampire."

"Ah."

"I think I'm always going to be a vampire, Jor-El," Clark continued as if Jor-El hadn't made the little noise that could be acknowledgement, sadness or any other emotion, always presuming that Jor-El was capable of feeling emotion. Clark didn't think that he was. "There aren't any other things to try to get rid of it, are there?"

"…I have no further research possibilities that will not cause catastrophic damage to your body, my son," Jor-El said. This time he did sound ever so faintly sad.

"If we can't cure the vampirism, maybe we can find something that will keep the hunger down," Clark offered. "You know, a food or drug that will keep me from wanting the blood so bad."

Silence echoed for a long moment that was made longer by Clark's nervousness speeding his awareness up so that a second seemed to last thirty seconds. Eventually several glowing screens appeared in front of Clark, each detailing different options that they could try to deal with the hunger. Clark let out the breath he'd been holding and smiled.

"Let's try the least difficult one first," Clark said, "and then work up to the more intense things if that doesn't work."

"I shall begin production immediately," Jor-El said.

The regular blood substitute was a wan pink fluid that Clark had always thought tasted like really bad strawberry pudding that had been watered down. Adjusting it made it taste like wood and did nothing for the hunger. A second adjustment made it look more like blood but the viscosity made it like drinking syrup. Clark spent a long day throwing up afterwards, unable to get the feel of it out of his mouth.

Jor-El tried different formulas, different drugs, different viscosities and colorations. They spent a solid year trying to perfect one formulation that seemed to be very promising but whenever Clark went out of the Fortress to see if he could interact with people it made the hunger spike unpredictably, which made his eyes flash red and his fangs appear no matter how he tried to control it.

A second, apparently promising, formulation drove him so mad that Jor-El imprisoned Clark in the Fortress for three months. It took that long for the remnants of the drug to be purged from his system. Once he returned to sanity Clark found that he'd gouged claw marks into some of the crystals and even Jor-El seemed a little afraid of him.

The days ticked onwards as they tried every single option that Jor-El had. Nothing worked better than occasional animal blood and spending a lot of time sunbathing. The sun still stung Clark's eyes but it kept the physical hunger at bay fairly well. His vampiric hunger seemed to be independent of his physical needs.

"I can't… stay here any longer," Clark said after two years had passed with no success. "I just can't, Jor-El."

"It would be good for you to fulfill your destiny," Jor-El said with what sounded like relief.

"…I can't rule the world if I can't get close to them, Jor-El," Clark sighed. He'd hoped that Jor-El had given up on the whole rule the world thing. There hadn't been a mention of it during the long years of trying to deal with Clark's vampirism. "I have to live in the shadows. You can't rule from the shadows."

Jor-El's sigh was something similar to a breeze through the Fortress. He made no efforts to stop Clark from leaving, though he did give Clark new clothes. Black jeans, a black shirt and a long black trench coat suited Clark's mood. They sort of reminded him of Gotham. They also reminded him of Lex.

Clark flew to Metropolis before he could think about it too hard. The last time he'd been in the city had been the night that Lex freed Clark and ended Lana's rule as the Queen of the Vampires. He remembered Metropolis as being dark, full of broken windows and abandoned cars. It had looked dead, killed by Lana's greed and vanity.

The Metropolis he found was bright and full of life. The windows were all fixed and the lights were on. So many lights filled the city that it fairly blazed with color and movement. It was alive, as alive as a person would be. Clark smiled and settled into the roof of the Daily Planet to stare out over the city that he'd thought destroyed but which was now restored.

It didn't take long to figure out what had happened. Lex had spent the last two and a half years rebuilding the city and bringing it back to live. Billboards advertised Lex's various efforts to restore the city while the newspapers Clark fished out of the trash spoke about Lex's many philanthropic activities. The vampires were a thing of the past. Metropolis had moved on, moved into the future that they seemed determined to create for themselves.

Lex didn't seem to have moved on at all. Clark watched him in the night as he and his people searched for Clark. Every night after work, Lex spent hours trying to track down where Clark might have gone and what he might have done. He didn't seem aware of the time Clark had spent in Tibet with Gotham but there was no surprise in that. Neither of them had done anything significant while they were there.

The part that bothered Clark was that every time he looked at Lex his fangs grew and a different sort of lust filled him. It scared him that he could think of touching Lex the way Lana had touched Clark. No matter how those terrible experiences had scarred Clark, he didn't want to think that they'd warped him into the sort of person who would rape his best friend. Yet every glimpse of Lex made Clark's fangs grow and his pants fill out.

It was terrifying.

After weeks spent haunting the sparse shadows of Metropolis and saving people while moving so quickly that he couldn't be seen, Clark sighed and flew to Gotham. Even with using his speed, trying to save people was a challenge. Every time he got close to anyone the hunger clawed at him and Lex haunted his mind now that Clark was back in the real world. Finding his friend Gotham was easy enough. He was on a rooftop in a bad neighborhood of Gotham City, staring down at the street.

"I don't know what to call you now," Clark commented as he landed not too near to his friend and stopped vibrating so that he could be seen. "It seems strange to call you Gotham when we're in Gotham."

"Kent," Gotham said, his lips quirking in a little smile. His bat mask shifted a little as if he'd raised one eyebrow. "Call me Batman. It's the name they know me by now."

"You look like the stereotype of a vampire," Clark chuckled. He kept his lips firmly shut so his oscillating fangs wouldn't upset Batman. The flash of his eyes couldn't be missed but Batman had never minded that.

"Deliberately," Batman replied with a tight smirk of his own. "I want to inspire fear among the criminals of Gotham. Sharing my fear… works well. Any success?"

Clark sighed and shook his head no. Batman stepped to his side and laid an armored hand on Clark's shoulder. Neither of them said a word about it after that. They didn't have the time. A bright bat symbol appeared on the clouds overhead and Clark heard someone going after Lex back in Metropolis. They nodded to each other and parted ways.

Over the next few weeks Clark visited Gotham several times, each time seeking Batman out. Once he was in the middle of a battle. By the time Clark sorted out who was dangerous and who was just caught in the crossfire Batman had dealt with the criminals and there was nothing for him to do. During the second visit he found Batman in a shipping container that hid an underground base with his butler by his side.

"Wayne?" Clark asked with so much awe that Bruce laughed at him. "You're Bruce _Wayne?_ What in the world were you doing in Tibet?"

"Learning to fight," Bruce said grimly enough that Clark frowned. "The ninjas you fought were… the remnants of the people I trained with. It's complicated, Kent."

"Somehow I think your levels of complicated approach my levels," Clark sighed. "And it's Clark."

"What?" Bruce didn't react to the amusement on Alfred's face that he'd been surprised but Clark did, grinning for a second before Alfred gasped at seeing the fangs.

"My name," Clark said. "It's Clark. Clark Kent."

"Hmm, I thought you were from Kent State," Bruce mused. "My mistake."

"Decent guess," Clark said. He didn't react as Alfred bowed and then hurried upstairs. "I should go."

"Why do you keep coming back?" Bruce asked.

"I… don't know how to get close to people without feeding on them," Clark admitted. "I mean, I spent all that time with you but it was different. When I'm saving people, touching them, the hunger… it's bad."

Bruce studied him for a long while, that same old calm expression on his face. For a wild moment Clark thought that the face he wore now was the true mask and the mask he wore as Batman was who Bruce truly was but Clark knew better. Neither of them were masks. They were just different parts of who Bruce was.

"Have you fed on any of them?" Bruce asked.

"No!" Clark squawked. "That's horrible! I won't do that!"

Bruce chuckled and stood. He put both of his hands on Clark's shoulders, staring into Clark's red eyes without the slightest shift in his fond expression or in the scent of his constant fear. The hunger clawed at Clark during that long moment but after a bit it subsided into curiosity.

"Clark," Bruce said, "you have the tools you need. It isn't easy and I doubt that you'll ever feel completely comfortable around people but you've already got what you need to return to normal life. All you have to do is do it. You proved that you could two years ago when we traveled together."

The confidence in Bruce's voice made Clark pause and really consider. He'd been so tempted to feed so many times but he'd resisted every single time. No one he'd met had truly pushed him past his ability to control his hunger, other than Lex. Thoughts of Lex made Clark shudder and step away from Bruce.

"There is someone who pushes your control," Bruce surmised.

"Yeah," Clark sighed while rubbing his arms. "It really freaks me out. He's… I shouldn't… but he's…"

"Lex Luthor," Bruce mused, nodding slowly and then grinning at Clark's startled look.

"How do you do that?" Clark asked.

"I've trained myself to be the world's greatest detective, Clark," Bruce said so smugly that Clark snorted at him. "Figuring out who you're in love with is easy enough."

"Love?"

Clark's heart felt like it stopped in his chest at the suggestion. He'd always been fascinated by Lex, ever since the moment that Lex hit him on the bridge back in Smallville, but he'd never allowed himself to think of it as love. Bruce's gentle smile made Clark start pacing as he tried to sort through all the emotions the word had brought up.

Memories of Lana battled with memories of Lex, along with all the comments and lessons he'd gotten from his parents about what he should want. Wanting another man was always been wrong in his parents' eyes but they were gone, killed by Lana's vampires, and there was no one for Clark to talk to about it. Bruce let him pace, watching and waiting until Clark calmed down.

"I never…"

"Obviously," Bruce replied. "You should at least try and talk to him, Clark. Don't let love slip through your fingers. It's… sometimes you can't ever get it back."

Bruce's calm mask of an expression slid into something full of grief and loss. Even with Clark's avoidance of the rest of humanity, he'd heard about the Joker's actions and the destruction in Gotham. He'd heard about the loss of Rachel Dawes. He didn't need to be a detective to tell that Bruce had cared about her deeply. There didn't seem to be anything to say to that so Clark just sighed and nodded.

"He's… still looking for me," Clark admitted. "Three years later and he's still looking for me."

"Go see him," Bruce suggested. "Maybe he can help where no one else can, Clark. All I can do is give you advice. Maybe Lex can find something else for you to feed on that will help."

"Doubt it," Clark said but he nodded that Bruce made sense. "Apologize to Alfred for me? I didn't mean to scare him."

"Stop wearing such threatening clothing and you'll be less scary when you slip up," Bruce said with an amused smirk. "Leave the dark vampire-wear to me, Clark."

That startled a spluttered laugh out of Clark. It took him several more weeks before he worked up the nerve to fly to Lex's penthouse and another four days beyond that before he could bring himself to speak to Lex. Seeing Lex was so different from interacting with anyone else that Clark wasn't sure he'd ever be able to control himself.

+++++

"There is literally nothing that controls the hunger?" Diana asked.

They'd stopped for coffee and snacks, neither of which Clark ate but he fiddled with a mug of coffee out of pure habit. The members of the League had relaxed by turns, each of them calming over various bits of Clark's story. Even Dinah and Ollie, the most suspicious of the League, had relaxed once they realized just how much Clark had tried to control his hunger.

"The only thing that works is Lex's blood," Clark admitted without looking up. "His blood lets me live among people. Without it, I'd have to live in the Fortress."

"And you can keep any questions about that to yourselves," Lex declared fiercely enough that Clark grinned at him. "Keep your noses out of our bedroom."

Bruce chuckled and Diana laughed outright. The laughter seemed to break the last of the League's horror. They didn't smell of fear anymore, other than Bruce's constant fear. Instead there was acceptance, humor and a sort of shame coming from them. Discussion turned to the mission that had taken Clark's powers and revealed him, and then on to everyday discussions. Lex stood and pulled Clark from the room so that they could go home. No one objected and a few waved goodbye.

"You handled that very well," Lex commented once they were back in the penthouse behind closed doors.

"It doesn't bother you?" Clark asked as they both pulled off their clothes so that they could head to bed.

"Your friendship with Bruce?" Lex asked. He chuckled at Clark's nod of confirmation. "Of course not. I trust you Clark. You told me ages ago that he was a friend and nothing more. Bruce agreed. Everything that you told us today confirms it. No matter what your various fan girls might think, it is perfectly possible for two men to be close friends without it devolving into sex."

Clark laughed and pulled Lex close. The sexual trauma from Lana's rapes was still there. It would always be there. He couldn't imagine a time when getting to touch Lex would be anything other than the greatest gift he would ever receive, but after their years together it was easier than it had been in the beginning.

"Love you," Clark murmured against the curve of Lex's neck.

"Love you too, Clark," Lex sighed. "Come on. Let's go to bed, have some kinky vampire sex and then sleep. It's been a long day and I think we've both earned the night off."

They settled into bed together, the wide platform bed absolutely nothing like Lana's old four-poster at the sorority. Just as the bed was completely different, Lex was completely different from her. Everything in Clark's life was different now and he couldn't help but be glad of it. His past, good and bad, would never go away, but he was home now.

"Home," Clark sighed and smiled when Lex ran his fingers through Clark's hair.

"Yes, our home. Forever."

"No, not the house," Clark said and then smiled at Lex's blush. "You."


End file.
